


The World Turned Upside Down

by buttsonthebeach



Series: Hamilton x Dragon Age [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Explicit Language, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Masturbation, Minor Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus, Oral Sex, Post-Canon, Smut, Song Lyrics, Spoilers, Trespasser DLC, Vaginal Fingering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-02
Updated: 2016-11-28
Packaged: 2018-08-28 17:44:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 45,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8455849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttsonthebeach/pseuds/buttsonthebeach
Summary: A retelling of the Solavellan romance in DA:I (chapters 1-9), Trespasser (chapter 10-11) and beyond (chapters 12-13) - using lyrics from the musical "Hamilton" as inspiration. Come be in the room where it happens! First AO3 fic, so tags and such may change.Chapters 4, 5, 6, and 10 have the smut! If a character is tagged, there is a section (or entire chapter) told from their point of view. More characters will be added to that list as we go.





	1. Stay Alive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys… I haven’t written fanfiction in years at this point but I could not let this silly idea go. This is essentially the story of my playthrough of Inquisition/Trespasser… inspired by lyrics from the musical Hamilton. Includes both canon and non-canon (but implied) events, and of course SPOILERS!
> 
> Obviously the songs in Hamilton are very specific to a particular time and place, but you’d be surprised how well certain verses work for our favorite friends from Dragon Age. I’ll be highlighting a different verse or two for each chapter and may also sneak in an actual line from the play as dialogue or description, too.

*************  
Outrun  
Outlast  
Hit ‘em quick, get out fast  
Stay alive until this horror show has passed  
We’re gonna fly a lot of flags half mast…  
***********

Solas knew he was in trouble - real trouble - the day Haven fell.

  
Not because there was truly no denying Corypheus’s existence now. Not because of all the dead bodies in the snow. Because of Ellana Lavellan.

  
Of course there’d been twinges of trouble before. Looking at her a little too long while she slept, not just because she was an enigma, but because she was lovely (even with that hateful vallaslin all over her face). Looking at her a little too long when she was crouched on the branch of a tree in the Hinterlands scouting their route, as at home there as any forest spirit (who wouldn’t notice her long limbs, her perfect poise, the utter calm she exuded out there?). Calling her graceful (stupid, weak, old man). But there was a gulf of difference between looking and speaking and feeling.

  
And on that day, he felt fear - real fear - that she would die. Felt it not because she was their hope to stop Corypheus, not because she had the Anchor - but because he might never hear her voice again.

“There!” Cassandra said, pointing back at the burning mess below them.

  
Yes, you could still see her, down by the trebuchet, staring Corypheus down. Her usual bow a dark line on the snow, an incongruous sword in her hand instead. What was she thinking? She was not Blackwall or Cassandra. She had no idea how to use that thing. She was too far away for him to cast a barrier, to Fade step there. There was nothing he could do. He should have focused on climbing the mountain, guiding the refugees. But all he could think was the same two words, over and over and over: _stay alive. Stay alive. Stay alive._

  
“She’s gone,” Varric called out a moment later, after Solas had turned his back, and his heart stopped. He whirled back around. There was another avalanche coming down, and the archdemon was in the sky, and there was nothing where she had been.

  
“What do we do?” Leliana asked.

  
“We keep climbing,” Cassandra said.

_Stay alive. Stay alive._

  
They made it far enough into the mountains with no sign of pursuit that they were able to make camp and the words were still beating a tattoo through his head. Maybe he could find her in the Fade, dead or alive (please be alive). If he could sleep, that was, with Cullen, Leliana, and Cassandra shouting at each other and the various noises of the large camp, and his head filled with the fear that she would never sidle up to him again and ask him to tell her about his journeys, grey eyes rapt the entire time.

  
“There she is!”

  
“Thank the Maker!”

  
He could Fade step to her this time, although by the time he was there Cullen had already hefted her limp body into his arms and healers were already swarming close.

  
“Is she alive?”

 

“Yes. Just exhausted and battered. She must have taken some kind of fall, and she’s been out in the cold…”

  
She was alive.

  
The knot loosened inside of him just in time for another one to form. Why should it matter? It didn’t matter (it did). He wouldn’t hover near her. He could see her fine from the perimeter of the camp. The firelight played across her red-brown skin and he could just see her chest rising and falling. He could see, too, how exhausted she was when she stood, how hard it was for her to move, how determined she was to move, how stubborn she was. She was going to go to the arguing advisors, come hell or high water.

  
_No. It does not matter._

  
Then they were singing for her, kneeling near her. Honoring her. Honoring her as he had never seen an elf honored since he awoke in this wretched place. Could she change it? No. He would be the one to do that.

  
Of course he had to pull her aside and tell her the orb was elvhen. He had to be the one who brought darkness to her face. This is why it didn’t matter. Couldn’t matter. But there was one thing he could give her.

  
He guided her to Skyhold, but he let it look like it was all her. She deserved that place. She deserved their praise. This could be his gift to her. His only gift. After this, no more.

  
She loved the place. She wandered it endlessly those first days (after her ribs were no longer so sore, after she’d slept for hours and hours), sitting on the edge of battlements and looking out at the mountains.

  
“You’re going to fall off one day and then we’ll really be fucked,” Varric remarked one day at dinner.

  
“I do love your lack of faith in me,” she said with a sly smile. “It’s refreshing. Most people seem to have too much.”

  
“I live to serve,” the dwarf replied.

  
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “My clan always chose me to scout and hunt once I was old enough. I was always curious. Always wanted to know what the next place was. I liked to sit and listen to people talk, too. That’s why I was the one they sent to the Conclave.”

  
And this was the pattern of her that mesmerized him. She would spend the morning in the war room, then wander the hold and its nearby grounds, then go around and talk to as many people as she could - except that she always did more listening than talking - and then she would have one dry remark, one insightful question. She was quiet and watchful, eager to learn, eager to listen - and then suddenly, blindingly funny. Warm. Like sun after clouds.

  
When she’d first woken at Haven she’d been a little sharp, a little standoffish. Rude, even. Why couldn’t she have stayed that way?

  
She came and spoke to him often, of course. Towards the end of the day, he noticed, when she had nowhere else to go and nothing else to do. Obviously that was when she was bored, he assured himself (even though she stared at him with perfect attention, all brown skin and grey eyes and red lips).

  
“I still want to hear more about your journeys in the Fade,” she said one day, lounging on the couch in the rotunda.

  
She had been reading a book about Orlesian history, something which he noticed took her quite a lot of effort. Her brows were always furrowed and occasionally she had to mouth words or ask him what one meant. It was one of the few things that reassured him that what he was going to do to this world was right. No one with her insatiable curiosity should have grown up without any kind of real education. She was lucky she could read at all.

  
“Still?” He asked. “Very well. But maybe somewhere more interesting this time.”

  
“I do like interesting,” she said. She had a low voice for a woman, and it was even lower now, even warmer, and he knew what that meant but didn’t want to know. She left for bed not long after and he knew he shouldn’t do it, knew it knew it knew it (but he wanted to do it).

  
He found her in the Fade and brought her to Haven, and he could quickly tell that she didn’t realize what was happening. He showed her all the places where he looked too long, recounted the events that he himself had struggled to ignore, and made that fatal slip.

  
“Felt the world change?” She asked, stepping closer. She smelled like leather and woodsmoke even here.

  
“A figure of speech,” he replied.

  
“I’m more interested in the word felt,” she said, and looked at him.

  
_Please no (please yes). All I want is for you to stay alive. And I’m the one who will kill you and all you love._

  
She kissed him, and it was another opportunity. For shock, for horror, for a simple, polite, no. She saw that in his face and turned away quickly and he saw the shame in her eyes, the fear, and he had to -

  
_Fenedhis._

  
She was soft and warm and slight and in his arms and it was everything he wanted and she sighed against his lips when he kissed her and he knew there was ruin ahead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: Lavellan's POV and "Right Hand Man."


	2. Right Hand Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s a good bit of recapping of canon material here, but I wanted to give a little bit of backstory for my version of Ellana Lavellan. Enjoy!

 

*************  
We are outgunned  
Outmanned  
Outnumbered  
Out planned  
We gotta make an all out stand  
I'm gonna need a right-hand man  
*************

In their adventures in the Hinterlands and the Storm Coast, Lavellan and her companions had worked out a few things. She was, by her own admission, the least experienced of any of them in actual combat. To be sure, she was stealthy, quick, and accurate - but she was and always had been a more fragile sort.

  
“I was born early, actually,” she told Varric, Cassandra, and Solas around the campfire one night. “They didn’t think I or my mother would make it. I’m much healthier now, but we always knew I’d never be a warrior. I’m just too small for it.”

  
“You’re strong enough for that bow,” Varric pointed out. “I’m not even sure how well I would do with it.”

  
“That’s because the crossbow has made you lazy,” Cassandra said.

  
“She has a name!”

  
Not only that, but she was vulnerable when she closed rifts. She had to be close to them, and she had to hold still for a while, and her stealth no longer worked once the Anchor activated. So they developed a system - she and Solas hung back in most fights, weakening and controlling their foes. Varric was a little closer, but Cassandra was the one doing the bulk of the work. When they encountered a rift, all three of them had to work to contain the demons while Lavellan crept up to it.

  
As more joined the Inquisition - Blackwall, Iron Bull, Dorian, Vivienne, Sera, Cole - they all learned the same things, and it stunned Lavellan. She always felt so - protected. Not safe, though. Never safe. She was good at hiding it - always had been - but she didn’t think she’d ever feel safe again. Not even in her dreams.

  
“It’s good that you have a strategy, but we can’t always have you relying on others for protection,” Cullen said. “What if something happens to them, or you’re taken by surprise? You should at least have a sense of good hand-to-hand combat, so you can get away.”

  
“We should get her specific training,” Leliana said. “Specialists. She’s not without skills. She’s just never really had a master to hone them.”

  
“Still, it will take time for specialists to arrive. Come to the courtyard tomorrow morning and I can start teaching you some things. That is - if you want to, I suppose,” Cullen said. She couldn’t help but chuckle. He was always tripping over his words. But watch him action, and he had a singular focus.

  
“I’d like that a great deal, actually,” Ellana replied. “I’ll see you there.”

  
Ellana loved morning. She loved Skyhold. She loved the sense growing inside her that this place and these people could be a new clan, more precious than even the one she was born into, because they seemed to have chosen her. It was what she thought about when she and Cullen were in the yard, running through drills for disarming opponents, breaking grapples and evading attacks.

  
“Not bad,” he said. “Remember, if they get ahold of you, you’re in trouble. Your goal is to break away before they can close their grasp.”

  
“Here, one more time?” She said. “I want to try something.”

  
This time when Cullen tried to grab her she stepped back, then flipped back even further, landing on her feet.

  
“Impressive,” he said. “But how quickly could you get to your bow?”

  
“I guess that’s the next step. Maybe Sera can help me figure that out.”

  
She found the other elf at the Herald’s Rest and they began to work out the move. Sera had more experience in these sort of tricks than Ellana, since she had seen more actual combat (of a sort). But Ellana was studying quickly, and by the end of the day she could leap back, draw her bow and fire the arrow, even if her aim wasn't as good as she’d like.

  
“Not bad for an elfy elf who spent her whole life in trees. Speaking of elfy elfs,” Sera jerked her chin away from them, towards the keep. Ellana looked over to see Solas standing on the stairs. When their eyes met, he turned and went back inside. “Oof, you’re in it. He was staring at those legs going over and over. Probably wants them around his droopy ears.”

  
Her whole body flushed at the thought. As if it was a new one. As if she hadn't been mesmerized by the sight of him casting, the expressiveness of his hands and face and body as he did so. As if she hadn’t already had a conversation with that strange Cole boy about which thoughts should not be shared to the general public after she watched him washing his shirt in a river, transfixed by his broader shoulders and the muscles she hadn't expected in a mage. As if she didn't go to sleep each night hoping he would come to her again in her dreams.

  
“I’m sure it was simple curiosity, Sera,” she said.

  
“Pfft. You’re no fun.”

  
Well, being a grown woman was no fun. She had so many other things to think about. She needed to learn more about military tactics from Cullen - more about intrigue and observation from Leliana - and, Creators help her, more about nobility and dancing and manners from Josephine, especially with their impending trip to Orlais. That would be enough to distract her, surely. He had told her he needed to think about this before they started anything. Well, she was going to not think about it. Not until his mysterious waiting game was over. She was a grown woman with more responsibilities by the day. Not a lovesick adolescent.

  
But.

 

Of course there was a but.

  
She needed him. In a thousand ways, it seemed. She needed him whenever there was a new Veilfire rune uncovered, when there were spirits and Elves to be reasoned with. To teach her tactics for fighting the demons that came through the rifts. And because she needed him he was always with her, always on her mind. He’d become her closest companion, of that there was no doubt. Kiss or no kiss. So when she came to the rotunda one morning and saw him sitting in his chair with a cup of tea in front of him, she knew something was wrong.

  
When they saw the demon in the Exalted Plains, she knew it was about to go very, very wrong. When his heart broke as he said good-bye to his friend, and hers broke too, she knew this was different than what she’d experienced before. This was more than him being a trusted ally and companion.

  
“I can’t believe he was so worked up that he left,” Dorian said. “Honestly. Over a spirit?”

  
“You would not be sad if I left?” Cole asked.

  
“Well… when you put it that way… Come to think of it, you look almost as upset, Inquisitor.”

  
“I would be upset to see any of you in that much pain,” Ellana lied.

  
“If I didn't know any better, I would say you had a little crush,” Dorian teased. They were getting close to Keeper Hawen’s clan now.

  
“Dorian, I would tell you to be serious but I already know how pointless that is,” she said wryly, half-smiling.

  
“What? Is there some other handsome elf back at Clan Lavellan that you are pining for?”

  
“Now you’re being even more ridiculous.”

  
“What? No one?”

  
“Do you really want to hear the story?”

  
“Family drama? Do tell.”

  
They still had a ways to go. At least it would pass the time. And maybe it would distract her from replaying the anguished look on Solas’s face over and over and over.

  
“My parents lived in an alienage in Ostwick, but they wanted more for their children, so they went in search of a clan to join. Clan Lavellan took them in, but clans are - well, the clan is everything. They have centuries of history and it is difficult to be the new ones. I was born part of Clan Lavellan, but the three of us always stuck out. Especially with how much darker skinned we are. That’s why my hair is so short.” She ran a hand through the red, woolly growth, which she kept shaved on the sides and a little longer on top, where it stood straight up. “It made me stand out too much. Well, and it was a pain getting branches stuck in it.”

  
“You should try a hat,” Cole suggested.

  
“But surely you were at least close to your parents,” Dorian said.

  
“Yes. But they died when I was sixteen. An illness. After that, the Keeper wanted me Bonded - married, that is. Wanted me to feel more connected to the clan. Wanted to make sure there was someone responsible for me. So they chose Mahanon. He was a sweet boy, not much older than me, and we were terrified of each other. We were good friends, but not really in love. Maybe something could have grown from that - especially if I’d gotten pregnant - but the same illness took him 6 months later. After that, the Keeper was kind enough to let me mourn for a while. She started hinting again that I should find someone, but it just - never really happened.”

  
“Wait, how old are you, Inquisitor?”

  
“This summer will be my… twenty-seventh?”

  
“Are you telling me that in the last 10 years you haven't met anyone?”

  
“I’ve had lovers now and then. But - no, no one serious.”

  
No one whose every absence hurts like a pulled muscle. No one so knowledgeable, so thoughtful, so grounded in themselves. No one who kissed her the way he did in that dream.

  
“Well then, this has been a productive trip,” Dorian said. “We chased a halla for 6 hours, found out that Solas really does like spirits more than people, and discovered that the Inquisitor is in danger of becoming an old maid.”

  
At least Dorian was keeping her laughing. She needed that on the trek back to Skyhold. When she arrived and Solas had not she needed it even more. Then, two days after her own arrival, he walked into the sunlit courtyard and she saw him and she felt like everything inside her was opening up - her heart and her lungs and even her damned toes - and pointing towards him. Shit.

 

“Solas - how are you?”

  
“It hurts. It always does.”

  
“I’m happy you came back - and next time - you don’t need to mourn alone.”

  
His smile was so gentle, so sad. She wanted to kiss him there and then, waiting be damned.

  
“Thank you. It has been a long time since I could trust someone. I - will work on it. Do you - have some time to talk?”

  
“Certainly.”

  
She was surprised when he led her to her quarters. A thrill ran through her at the thought of what he could want. She could see them on the bed now - but he was looking at her and she flushed and tried to banish the thought, glad her darker skin made it hard to see her blush.

  
“What were you like? Before the Anchor?”

  
A Dalish hunter, getting too old to be alone, feeling further and further from her clan rather than closer and closer. Longing to see more of the world but afraid to admit it, because a lone elf was a dead elf. But it wasn’t what he meant.

  
“Has it affected you? Changed you in any way? Your mind, you morals, your… spirit?”

  
“If it had, do you really think I’d have noticed?”

  
“No. That’s an excellent point.”

  
She was always keenly aware of her lack of magical knowledge around him - it thrilled her to think she’d turned the tables on him.

  
“You show a wisdom I haven’t seen since - since my deepest journeys into the ancient memories of the Fade. You have not been what I expected.”

  
“Sorry to disappoint,” she said, raising her eyebrows.

  
“It’s not disappointing. It’s - most people are predictable. You have shown subtlety in your actions, a wisdom that goes against everything I expected.”

  
Subtlety? Wisdom? Was he watching the same bumbling fool she was, day after day? Half the time she just did what her advisors and companions told her to do, it seemed.

  
“What does this mean, Solas?”

  
“It means I have not forgotten the kiss.”

  
Finally.

  
“Good,” she said, stepping closer. He looked at her for a moment, the sunlight over the mountaintops blinding bright around them, casting shadows on his face. Then he began to turn away. Her hand was on his arm before she even consciously thought about it. “Don’t go.”

  
“It would be kinder in the long run,” he said. Her chest felt heavy. But then he turned back. “But losing you would -”

  
And he was kissing her, a consuming kiss, like drowning, and he was holding her tightly against him, and it was even better than in the Fade. After a moment he parted his lips and she followed suit, and he tasted sweeter than she thought he would, and Creators she already felt the heat between her legs. Then he pulled back. Why?

  
“Ar lath, ma vhenan,” he said.

  
She felt weightless. They were not the words she’d expected. Who was the last person that had said that to her and meant it? And after weeks of nothing - he loved her? She was so stunned that she let him walk away. I love you, my heart. The words played over and over through her head.

  
Maybe she was a lovesick adolescent.

  
It wasn’t until that night, standing on the same balcony, that she realized it. Then she went sprinting down the stairs, across the quiet hall, and to his quarters. He looked up from his reading, startled.

  
“Ellana - has something happened?”

  
Instead of responding, she just kissed him. Then she drew back.

  
“Ar lath, ma sa’lath.”

  
He smiled. “That couldn’t wait until morning?”

  
“Absolutely not,” she said.

 

****  
Here comes the general  
****

 

In the morning they left for Crestwood, their last trip into the field before they would return to Skyhold and then go on to Halamshiral. They rode out to dozens of well wishes, waving to those they were leaving behind. And he was there, at her side.

  
“Ready?” she asked.

  
“Ready,” he said.

  
For the first time in a while, it was not so terrifying to ride out in search of demons. She had her friends. She had him. Every now and then she thought back to his words - it would be kinder in the long run - but then he would call her name to show her the herbs he’d gathered, remembering that she wanted them, or to comment on a nearby ruin. And all she felt was that same weightless, soaring joy.

 

****  
Here comes the general  
And her right hand man  
****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okayy, so I did have to change the pronouns in the lyrics at the end. Oh well. Now we move on to “Helpless” and a ‘retelling’ of “Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts” from the point of view of various companions as they wonder at the exact nature of the relationship between Solas and Lavellan!


	3. Helpless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a tough chapter for me until I came up with the idea of exploring how other people view Solas and Lavellan, and their relationship. It was fun to peak into some other heads this time around! The song lyrics in this case show Ellana's thoughts at various moments, rather than our three other narrators. (Also, one slight edit to the Hamilton lyrics in this chapter, since Ellana doesn't have a sister. You'll see what I mean!)

“This is the stupidest fucking plan I have ever heard of.”

  
When the Iron Bull and his Chargers first joined the Inquisition, they of course asked around to find out more about this Herald of Andraste. In those early days, if you asked someone about Ellana Lavellan, there were a few different descriptions of her floating around. Heroic Herald of Andraste, of course. Pretty nice for a Dalish elf. Quiet. Bit standoffish. Funny if you spend a little more time with her.

  
But no one mentioned her temper.

  
No, that surfaced once they were staying at Skyhold. More specifically, in the weeks leading up to their journey to Halamshiral. And now, sitting in the main hall enjoying what these southerners called breakfast, Bull was hearing more evidence for the description drifting down from the balcony above.

  
“On that note,” Josephine said with false cheer. “We should probably also discuss appropriate language to use in the presence of these dignitaries.”

  
It was clear from the way Josephine clipped her consonants that she was growing frustrated with her pupil, who was snarling and probably fidgeting in the gown Vivienne was carefully adjusting on her slight form, based on what they’d been saying before. But after seeing her break up Cassandra and Varric’s fight over Hawke, which involved a variety of elvish and common curses in both their directions, they’d all seen it was best not to lean into her temper. Once she was angry, she was angry, and reacting to her was not going to help matters. Bull couldn’t help but chuckle, being out of earshot and all. It was kind of funny seeing such a tiny little woman get so angry.

  
“I do not want to go to this ball. I do not want to wear this dress. I want to send a letter to Celene telling her she’s in danger and be done with it,” Ellana said.

  
“Try to think of it like a hunt, my dear Inquisitor,” Vivienne said. “You do not go charging straight at your prey, do you? You stalk and trap it carefully.”

  
Ellana sighed, and then there was a yelp from Josephine.

  
“Really, Inquisitor - you could have warned us that you were disrobing.” Bull would never understand how Ellana was so unmoved by that steely tone in Vivienne’s voice.

  
“The hell with shem modesty. And I’m not wearing it.” Ellana was no longer raging, but she wasn’t calm yet, either.

  
One contradiction about Ellana Lavellan that Bull had noticed over the last few weeks was that while she was careful with her words and good at masking her emotions on her face, she was very expressive with her body. So even if her face looked calm, anyone who knew her and watched her descend from Vivienne’s balcony (clothed, under Josephine’s orders) could tell the tight shoulders and short steps meant she was still ready to spring.

 

“Have you seen the Inquisitor?” Cassandra asked Bull later, while he and Sera were out watching the Chargers run drills.

  
“Yes, but I wouldn’t go near her if I were you,” Sera said. “She’s huffing like a noble who’s found out a precious silver fork has gone missing.”

  
“Maker,” Cassandra said. “I’ll stay away. I know I won’t be able to control my temper, either. I’m surprised she’s acting this way. She was so quiet at first, when we got to Haven.”

  
“Would it be cliche to point out that she’s a redhead?” Bull smirked. Too skinny for his taste - he’d probably break her in half during the foreplay - but he couldn’t deny he liked her hair.

  
“Yes, and it would also show a lack of taste,” Cassandra said, narrowing her eyes. Sera just laughed.

  
The other thing Bull had learned about Ellana’s tempers was that they passed swiftly, and were usually followed by guilty apologies. He was shocked to find her still fuming at dinner. She was clearly making an effort to control it - asking after everyone’s day, catching herself when she cut her venison with such force that the knife scraped the plate - but the Ben’Hassarath agent was still left with the feeling that he was seated with a grenade and not an elf. But as long as they avoided the words Orlais, Celene, dress, and Winter Palace, it seemed like they might get through the dinner in peace.

  
That was, until Solas came to join them.

  
Once again, even if Ellana’s face didn’t change when he arrived, the rest of her did. Instantly. She was more still now, if you were really watching. Not less tense. Just no longer quite vibrating with the urge to hurt something. That was one clue to what she was feeling. But Bull found a better clue: she didn’t look at him. At all. Yet there was no shame in her face or her shoulders.

  
She didn’t want anyone to see her looking at him.

  
“So,” Solas said when he was done eating. “I hear you made some progress today in plans for our journey to the Winter Palace. What remains to be done?”

  
Smooth.

  
“Oh, fuck me.” Sera, as usual, said what most of them were thinking.

  
“But Solas is not a lady.” As did Cole.

  
Ellana set down her knife and fork and took a breath through her nose. Now that Bull thought about it, he hadn’t seen her temper directed at Solas before. Or even really in front of Solas. This oughta be good.

  
“There is nothing to be done. It is a hopelessly stupid idea.”

  
“To warn Celene of the danger that faces her? Hardly.” If Solas was aware of the way her shoulders were tensing again, he showed no sign of it.

  
“No, to try and beat the Orlesians at their own idiotic Game with only a few weeks’ practice. It’s like sending a lone child out with a bow and telling them to bring home dinner.”

  
Ah. That’s why she’d been one word away from a fight since their preparations began in earnest.

  
“Is that what worries you?” Solas said. “You are not a child being sent on her first hunt, lethallen. And you are certainly not being sent alone.”

  
So the apostate was as good at reading the Inquisitor as he himself was. Ellana was looking at Solas now, straight in the eye. Just a second or two longer than she should have.

  
“I guess not,” Ellana responded. Then, a moment later. “Thank you.”

  
“There is no need for thanks, Inquisitor,” Solas said as he rose, leaving the table with a small bow. Aimed only at her.

  
Interesting.

  
Ellana watched him walk away, too.

  
What did letha-whatever mean?

  
Sera cackled and said something singsongy under her breath that he did not quite catch. Ellana glared at her and then excused herself from the table. Bull mulled the signs on and off for the rest of the night, when he wasn’t riling up Dorian, then tucked them away. It was a good practice to have information on those around him, and if there was something between their apostate and their inquisitor, it could be important later. It almost turned out to be useful several days later, when she was teasing him about being glum that none of the barmaids were around the Herald’s Rest.

  
“Poor Bull. You’ll survive one night with a cold bed, I suppose.”

  
“You’d know about cold beds, boss. Isn’t that - ”

  
Before he could say the other elf’s name he caught sight of the look in Ellana’s eyes. Total, utter helplessness. Shit. Whatever it was between them, it wasn’t a game. Whatever it was, whatever he noticed - it would remain a closely kept secret, unless it became a dangerous one.

  
“ - isn’t that Dorian over there? Hasn’t he been leading you on for weeks now with his flirting?”

  
She laughed as the ‘Vint approached their table, the look clearing from her face. “Please. He wishes he could get the attention of someone like me.”

  
“Inquisitor! You mistake yourself. You would be lucky to have the attention of such a man as myself.”

  
The tension eased, thanks in part to several rounds that he bought. But every now and then Bull saw Ellana glance towards the door like she was waiting for someone.

 

*****  
Oh, you’ve got me helpless  
I look into your eyes and the sky’s the limit  
I’m helpless  
Down for the count and I’m drowning in ‘em  
*****

Vivienne was no stranger to the power of a look. Quite the opposite. She practiced them when she had time in the Circle at Montsimmard, turning her face this way and that to catch the light, determining how best to lift an eyebrow to show displeasure and how to part her lips just enough to suggest desire. It was how she caught Bastien’s eye, after all. Standing in the swirl of whispers and perfume at the Winter Palace, she could easily recreate the scene in her mind’s eye. Herself, young enough to tempt but old enough to have experience, apart from the crowd but close enough to it to attract attention. Scanning the dancers, waiting for someone to glance her way. Then there Bastien was - in the arms of another but caught in her gaze, although the way she glanced shyly away let him think that it was he who’d caught her.

  
She hummed and took a sip of her wine. Bastien. Hopefully he was doing better. She’d worked on some alchemical formulas that might be of use, but she needed a snowy wyvern heart. Her position within the Inquisition was good, though she was not sure she was quite close enough to the Inquisitor herself to ask for so personal a favor. Ellana Lavellan rarely brought Vivienne with her into the field, saying that she was much better suited to entertaining visiting dignitaries in her absence. And, of course, she already had her preferred mage, the one she never left Skyhold without. Solas. Before her mind could latch onto that particular train of thought, she caught the strains of an interesting conversation.

  
“Can you believe the rumors were true? A Dalish savage, leading a military organization that grows by the day?”

  
“Maker, I am still shocked. Still, she is not as savage as I would have thought. Perhaps not even as savage as we would have liked.”

  
“What do you mean by that, messere?”

  
“A true savage would not be charming all and sundry as she is.”

  
Vivienne glanced across the hall to see Ellana dancing with a matron, to the delight of those around her. The elf performed the steps well, but with just a hint of roughness and enthusiasm that made it charming. Vivienne could not help but smile. By accident or intent, her little protege seemed to see now that her touch of savagery was in fact a gift, a pretty knife she could use in this Game to charm and wound them.

  
Something stirred in the field of Vivienne’s vision and she saw that Solas had entered the ballroom. He was supposed to be in the hallway outside the garden. She looked around, wondering if there was any trouble. But he did not seem alarmed. Instead, he was leaning on the door frame, watching Ellana. Vivienne found the apostate difficult to read, but in this place, where everything was clear to her as glass, she could see it writ large on his face: longing.

  
Ellana had long since bowed to the matron and was now laughing at something Josephine’s incorrigible younger sister was saying. Then she turned, and caught the apostate’s eye from across the room. She froze for just an instant, and returned the same look he had on his face. Longing, like a lone flame in the night.

  
Vivienne’s heart clenched. She had little in common with the Inquisitor, it was true. And her thoughts on Solas were almost certainly biased. But she wanted so badly to protect Ellana from what that look meant. Whether she wanted it or not, Ellana Lavellan was part of the Game now, and would be for the rest of her days. In that game, such longing was weakness and death. It was all well and good to share carefully practiced glances and well choreographed dances of desire. She and Bastien certainly had deep affection for one another, one that far surpassed friendship. But that kind of look? That kind of longing? With a man who had nothing to truly offer her - who had suspiciously little to offer anyone? Love, like magic, was something that burned.

  
Later in the evening, Ellana returned with her formal clothes mussed and a frustrated look on her face.

  
“You have blood on your face, dear,” Vivienne said. “Do I want to know why?”

  
Ellana rubbed it away. “Probably not. Damn halla statues. Has anyone noticed I was gone?”

  
“I have done my best to keep them occupied with small enchantments here and there.”

  
“Good.”

  
Ellana was scanning the crowd now. Vivienne took in the sight of the smaller woman, her dark skin burnished by the candlelight and the faint sheen of sweat from whatever it was she’d gotten herself into. She was trying to compose her face once again, to hide her frustration and exhaustion. She didn’t work tirelessly to get into this court. She didn’t ask to bear that mark. Vivienne felt a sudden surge of protectiveness for her, and knew she had to speak.

  
“Is it my imagination, dear, or have certain longing looks passed between you and our Solas?”

  
Ellana glanced back at her, and then away. “I’m not sure what you mean. Have you seen Leliana?”

  
_Good girl. Evasive, but not rude. You will learn. I only hope you will learn this lesson too._

  
“Perhaps I was mistaken. I do find him strange,” she said. “He has so much knowledge, and so little personal history. He is not someone I would picture as your companion.”

  
Ellana fidgeted with a thread on her cuff, but remembered to look up and bow when a noble passed them. It was clear she was not going to answer. Well, some lessons took time to take root and grow. She had passed on her warning as delicately as she could. Now to send her little protege back out again.

  
“Sister Nightingale is across the room, if you are still looking for her.”

  
“Thank you, Madame de Fer.”

  
Then she was gone into the crowd with that eerie silence and swiftness her hunter’s skills granted her. Vivienne’s focus returned to the music and the conversation and the familiar rhythms of fortunes lost and won, betrayals and renewals, wine and daggers, and she thought no more on love.

 

*****  
I have never been the type to try and grab the spotlight  
We were at a revel with some rebels on a hot night  
Laughing at her sister as she’s dazzling the room  
Then you walked in and my heart went boom  
*****

 

For all that Varric wasn’t a fan of these sorts of affairs, he had to admit he was getting some damn good material. Maybe he could write another installment of Swords and Shields titled “A Winter’s Ball” after this. Intrigue, demons, dancing, and a naked man tied up in the empress’s quarters? It was almost too perfect.

  
Just as he was sipping his wine and musing on what angle to take on the whole affair (and elf servant? A minor noble? A dangerous assassin?), Ellana Lavellan came and stood by him.

  
“Inquisitor! Looks like you were worried over nothing. You’re the belle of the ball,” he said.

  
“Is that a good thing?” She said with a snort, crossing her arms.

  
“Is ending a civil war by uncovering blackmail on all three main players a bad thing?”

  
“I guess,” she huffed. “I hate that it had to be done that way. Before coming here I assumed Celene was a victim and Gaspard was a villain. Now I hate both of them. And Briala to boot. They’re not getting along with each other because it’s the right thing to do, either.”

  
Varric wanted to laugh at her naivete, but caught himself. If there was one thing he’d come to appreciate about the Inquisitor as he got to know her, it was her kindness. Of course she’d come here hoping for the best in the players of this Game.

  
“Well, your grace, you’ll just have settle for knowing that you are a better person than anyone else here. Maybe they can learn from the Herald of Andraste’s example. You could teach lessons on how not to be an asshole!”

  
She snorted. True laughter was a rare sound for her - snorts and chuckles abounded, but not actual laughs.

  
“I wouldn't go that far,” she said. “I did mention to several giggling Orlesian women that Cullen was indeed quite available and waiting behind that planter over there.”

  
“Inquisitor! The Orlesians have corrupted you after all.”

  
“Perhaps.” The laugh had faded. “I’m going to take the air for a moment - do try and keep any other assholes from following.”

  
“Sure thing.”

  
As she walked onto the balcony, Varric found himself thinking about his other work in progress: the improbable story of everything that had happened since the Conclave. It sounded like the setup for a terrible joke: what do you get when you take a Dalish hunter who has spent her entire life with her clan, toss her into the Fade, give her some ancient elf magic, then ask her to solve all of Thedas’ problems and kill a would-be god?

  
Apparently, change. And one tired and confused elf.

  
Where would this chapter fit into her narrative? Haven was how she came to terms with her newfound power and its responsibilities. Skyhold and the growing influence spreading from their keep was how she grew to hope that she could actually change this world. What was Halamshiral? He glanced at her on the balcony, her posture slumped. Perhaps the beginning of her loss of innocence.

  
“Pardon me, Master Tethras. Have you seen the Inquisitor?”

  
Solas startled Varric a little, but he did stop himself from saying ‘she said no assholes.’ It wouldn’t even be true - he found Solas weird and taciturn, but he was nothing if not considerate. For the most part. Actually, one of the other surprises of the night (right up with the Iron Bull successfully not destroying anything) was how comfortable Solas seemed here. He was - courtly.

  
“She’s taking a moment to herself on the balcony. Quite a night, you know.”

  
“Thank you,” the elf said, already heading that way.

  
Something about his urgency piqued Varric’s interest. If there was some kind of actual emergency, Solas would probably have told him. He knew he shouldn’t turn and look around the corner to the balcony. But - well - he was a storyteller.  
Ellana was leaning against the railing, and Solas was standing beside her, his hand on the small of her back.

  
Wait.

  
What?

  
Yup, that was his hand on the small of her back. She was leaning into his touch, looking up at him. This was not how friends touched. This was not at all how friends touched.

  
Solas stepped back then and bowed to her, holding out his hand. Ellana turned to him and smiled, and it was the kind of smile that you almost couldn’t describe without a cliché - so full of open and honest love it almost hurt to look at.

  
How did he miss this?

  
Sure, most of his conversations with Ellana ended with her heading into the rotunda, but sometimes she had research to drop off, or she needed to talk to Leliana, or she had a question for Dorian. If she stopped and talked to Solas, it only made sense - he was the first thing you saw when you went through…

  
They were still dancing. Solas was good at this. He was saying something into her ear and she was laughing.

  
Well, shit.

  
Maybe Varric did spend too much time thinking of Ellana as some figure who was already half a myth, whose entire life was the Inquisition and her mission. This was something to keep in mind if he did write about her. He started collecting impressions of what he saw - the rich red of their uniforms, the dying strains of the band’s last song, the way the normally surly Solas grinned (grinned!) at her, how the faint light of the candles glinted off her cheekbones when she leaned towards him -  
Varric stepped back. Even he had some standards for voyeurism. He wondered if he was the first one to figure this out. Was ‘lovebirds’ too obvious of a nickname? Probably. He was going to have to think on this one. Also, there was a very good chance Chuckles would set him on fire if he mentioned this. He pretended to be absorbed in the buttons on his coat when they reentered - first Solas, and then Ellana a little behind him. Varric kept his eyes open as their companions said their farewells to the various dignitaries present, but Ellana and Solas kept their distance from each other. It was only as they were all saying goodnight at the doors to their respective quarters that he saw it. A quick glance from Ellana, a shy smile, and then a nod of the apostate’s head (what was with that helmet?).

  
Well, maybe Halamshiral was the part of her narrative where the Inquisitor started to lose a little faith in people. But it was also the one where Solas made her smile like that - helpless in the best kind of way. Varric smiled as he thought about it. He loved a good love story. Wasn’t great at writing them, but loved them. He could only hope that this was, in fact, one of the good ones.

 

****  
Helpless  
****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: "Say No To This" and the first time Solas and Lavellan sleep together! (So, you know, smut.)


	4. Say No To This

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Smut ahead! You have been warned. This was actually the song that inspired this entire fic. I was listening to it shortly after playing DA:I and immediately went “huh, I bet that’s a lot like how Solas felt about sleeping with Lavellan.” Then I started trying to come up with more parallels and - lo and behold!

Solas knew she had nightmares. Who wouldn’t? There was plenty of fuel for it: her scraps of memory from her journey in the Fade after the explosion, or facing Corypheus and his archdemon alone in Haven, or the crushing pressure she was under all day, every day, or the pain of the Anchor in her arm. Many nights she came to his room in the rotunda and just sat there, pretending to read, but he knew she was avoiding sleep.

  
“There are teas you can drink, meditations you can try - you could even try to learn and dream more lucidly, so that you do not face the things you fear,” he told her.

  
“I suppose,” she said, but she never really tried any of them. She just hovered near him restlessly most nights under one pretext or another.

  
Of course, there was one remedy he never mentioned. The reason she was there.

  
It was no secret that she wanted him. They’d kissed a handful of times since that day on her balcony, touched hands, sat closer to each other than they should have. He kept replaying a moment in the Emerald Graves again and again in his mind - while Cole and Sera moved forward to scout ancient Elven ruins for them, she took hold of his wrist and pulled him into a crevice in the rock and kissed him hard, longingly, open-mouthed, her hands on his hips. He tried to pull away.

  
“What?” She said. “They won’t be back for a while. And I’ve been watching you all day. We shouldn’t have let you take those robes from the ruin. They’re too tight on you.”

  
The new robes had another flaw. They were thin enough that he knew she felt just how much he wanted her, and she could raise one leg and angle her hips so that he fell between them and he could grind against her. He’d never been more grateful to hear Sera’s voice in his life.

  
“Oy, your elfiness, there is another glyph up here. Get cracking.”

  
He pulled away and looked at her and her eyes were hazy with desire that he knew he could not give into. It was bad enough that they flirted, that they kissed, that he let her rest her head in his lap when she was tired and no one else was around. That he called her vhenan. But to lie with her? It would be too far. It would mean too much. It would mean that what had to come next would be too painful for both of them. It was one thing to be a dalliance who drew away eventually. But a lover?

  
So they kissed in dark corners and she tried more than once to guide his hand up from her knee to her inner thigh and she couldn’t sleep and he pretended that it was a dance they could dance forever.

  
Sometimes he found her in the Fade and guided her away from the nightmares. Then there was the night she kept screaming.

  
He found her on a battlefield oozing in mud and blood and shit, the bodies of their inner circle strewn around her, the archdemon on top of her, the Anchor blazing in a green so bright it hurt his eyes.

  
“Ellana!” he called. “Wake up! Ellana!”

  
She kept screaming. None of the other figures in the dream reacted to his presence, either - her willful hold on the image was that strong. He tried again and no one heard, no one reacted. She was in a state of fear so deep that even he couldn’t change it. It would inevitably draw the attention of demons. So he snapped awake, threw on his clothes, stormed out of the rotunda and across the great hall, ran up the stairs to her quarters, opened her door, and ran to her side.

  
She was rigid, panting, sweating, crying, and even when he took hold of her shoulders it took a shake or two to wake her. When her grey eyes finally snapped open she looked right through him, seized him so hard he was sure he would bruise.

  
“It’s me,” he had to say over and over again. “It’s me, da’len.”

  
She finally saw him again, and the pain in her eyes was more than he could bear. He had to draw her onto his lap, close against his chest, so that he could whisper to her that she would be fine, that there was nothing to fear. It didn’t matter that he had on only a pair of leggings and a loose shirt, that she was wearing even less. It didn’t matter that he was sitting in her bed with her. All that mattered was that she stopped shaking.

  
“I had - the most terrible dream,” she said at last.

  
“I know. I found you in the Fade and could not calm you, so I came here.”

 

She sighed against his chest. What she said next was so quiet he almost couldn’t hear it. “I don’t deserve you.”

  
“What?”

  
“I don’t deserve you, or this room, or any of these people’s praise - I’m some Dalish elf with no idea how half the world works and no idea how to fix any of this and I’m just shooting arrows and flailing my hand and hoping I don’t get everyone killed and I just want it to stop - ”

  
There was no way he couldn’t respond to that. Not after all the times he’d watched her step forward boldly into uncertainty, determined to change things for the better. Not after all the times he’d seen her stay up late, studying earnestly to make up for her lack of education. Not after her long conversations with him or with her council, carefully weighing every opportunity, looking for the maximum benefit for everyone.

  
“The only thing you don’t deserve is the fear you feel, the pressure - the danger. I meant it when I said you were a rare spirit, one I have only seen in my deepest journeys in the Fade. Vhenan, you deserve more than this room, than praise, than this Inquisition - than me.”

  
She was on his lap. She had enough room to angle up her face then, to look at him, searchingly. To put her hand on his face and trace the sharp angle of his jaw and draw him down and kiss him hard and longing and open-mouthed like she did that day in the ruins. And like a diver searching for pearls, he could only kiss her for so long before he knew he would have to draw away for breath, and to protect them both.

  
“You need to sleep. Let me get you a glass of water - better, a glass of wine - ”

  
She kissed him again, rotated herself so she was now straddling his hips. No smallclothes under that shirt.

  
“The only thing I want is you,” she said.

  
“I should not - ”

  
But she had reached down between them and taken ahold of him through the leggings. She kissed his cheeks, his chin, his neck, kept stroking him through the thin fabric.

  
“You are the only person that makes me feel like myself. The only person who makes me feel like I’m safe, like I can do this,” she said. “Make me feel that.”

  
_Fenedhis._

 

*****  
That’s when I began to pray:  
Lord, show me how to say no to this  
I don’t know how to say no to this

 

But my God, she looks so helpless  
And her body’s saying, “hell, yes”

 

No, show me how to say no to this  
I don’t know how to say no to this  
In my mind, I’m tryin’ to go  
(Go! Go! Go!)  
Then her mouth is on mine, and I don’t say no…  
****

 

He leaned forward so that she had to fall back onto the bed and release her grip on him, then pushed up her shirt until she could remove it. Creators, she was naked and under him and his hands were shaking. Every part of her smooth, curved, open to him. He knew this dance. Knew it inside and out. But as he traced her collarbones, the space between her small breasts, her navel, the red curls between her legs - it seemed new. She was already swollen, slick, gasping at his touch. Maybe it could just be this, he thought as he traced circles around her opening. She was sighing and groaning and pulling at his shirt. He could make her come, hold her as she drifted off to sleep. Insist that the kitchen begin sending up a relaxing tea every night. Guard her in the Fade against this ever happening again.

  
But he pressed a finger against that warm nub at her center, already out of its hood, and she cried out and then whispered in his ear: “I want _you_ ” and pulled at the hem of his shirt and he knew, as he knew that day when he kissed her in the Fade, that there was only ruin ahead.

  
She tugged at his shirt and sat up to pull it off, moving enough to disrupt the rhythm he was trying to build, and then she reached for the hem of his pants and groaned when he pressed down harder on her.

  
“Patience,” he said.

  
Because even though he’d wanted to bend her over his desk in the rotunda and take her a thousand times already, if he was going to actually bed her, he was going to do it right. He let his magic warm his fingers as he kept stroking her, sometimes in slow circles and then in faster, tighter ones, watching her writhe under him. She was getting wetter, more swollen, more sensitive. Every time she started to say his name he slowed, too enraptured with the way she threw her head back so the sweat gleamed on her neck, by the way one of the lines of her vallaslin pointed straight at her heart. Maybe he could make this last forever instead. But she was delicious - every part of her - and when her voice got even higher he had to slide a finger into her, revel in the feel of those silky walls, had to rub that swollen place faster, had to feel her tighten and release around him as she came in long, jagged contractions, her wetness rushing out. He had to breathe in deep the smell of her - rich and earthy and female and  _his_.

  
He waited a moment when she was done, flexing the finger gently, watching the way it made her shudder. Then she opened her eyes again. Moon-grey eyes, so at peace now. He gave that to her. And it didn’t feel like anything was broken forever, like he was doomed, or like she was. No more than usual. He just felt - home. It was a false feeling. He had no home. The wandering apostate was not a disguise. He was an apostate before the so-called gods of his people. He destroyed the only home he knew.

And yet. And yet she looked up at him and smiled and tightened her walls around the finger still inside her. An invitation to truly come home within her.

  
Here was another chance to say no, while her breath slowed. He pulled his hand away from her and rolled so he was off to the side, cleaned off his finger and then stroked her face.

  
“Rest, vhenan. You need it.”

  
She sat up and took hold of his hand. “I need you.”

  
_Say no._ He told himself. But she leaned forward and kissed him, and all he could do was groan.

  
She was gentle when she guided him so that he lay back against the pillows, as she straddled him, as she took hold of him in her hand (soft, warm, perfect hand - when was the last time he felt a touch other than his own?) and guided him into her. One fluid, graceful moment, and he was lost. Except - no. He was anchored in her, throbbing, ready (too ready), so ready he had to hold her still for a moment. But she started to rock downward, and he rocked upward to meet her, and he was so hard it hurt, and his magic ran all over both of them, a thousand dancing sparks. It was different than before the Veil. More - raw. It felt like too much and not enough all at once - he couldn’t think straight or remember what he used to do - so he clawed at her back until she leaned down and kissed him and their chests were flush and he could feel her heartbeat, but it wasn’t enough - he sat up and had to pull out of her so he could roll her onto her back, so he could enter her again. Over and over and over again and it was too good now. His world was narrowed to her tight heat around him, to the way she rocked her hips and cried out at the end of each thrust. He couldn’t resist her, couldn’t make himself slow down, and it was only when he felt the telltale tightening at the base of his cock that he felt fear again.

  
He pulled out quickly as he started to come and emptied himself on the bed beside her, his forehead against hers, his eyes shut tight through each pulse. The pleasure wracking him at the same pace as the guilt. He should have said no. At least he had that one last bit of restraint, to pull out at the end. He could tell it had confused her - she was tenser than she should have been (he hadn’t even paid attention to how it felt for her, he was so lost in how good it felt for him).

  
“Ir abelas,” he said.

  
“You’re sorry?” she said. She laughed, but it was a short sound, not her usual warm lilting melody. “Solas - open your eyes.”

  
He did, leaning back enough to really see her. And - it was all real. Her, there beneath him, smiling. She ran her thumb over his lips.

  
“I have been waiting for that for months,” she said. “The only thing you should say sorry for is that it took you so long.”

  
She looped her arms around his neck and stared up at him, and she was so trusting (too trusting) and content (he would destroy that in the end).

  
“I have already told you,” he said. “It would be kinder if - ”

  
But she sat up and kissed him. When she pulled away she looked him in the eye, but he looked away instead (and marveled at how dark her skin was next to his).

  
“I love you,” she said. “Stay? At least until I fall back asleep?”

  
“Very well,” he said. “But if I am gone when you wake do not fear. It would be better if the entire great hall did not see me leaving your chambers in yesterday’s clothes, yes?”

  
She chuckled. “Vivienne would probably die. Dorian has probably bet someone something about this already and would need to collect. Cassandra would turn the most perfect shade of tomato red. So, in other words, it would be glorious - and, yes, ill-advised.”

  
He went to lie down beside her but they both realized that the sheets needed changing. She rose and he followed, saying “let me.” This part felt - foreign. Being in her chambers, still not dressed, smoothing out sheets, waiting to call her back to bed so she could lie still at his side and sleep. When he was done he turned to her and she was staring out at the mountains, still naked. She shifted and he could see the interplay of all those hard won muscles from a thousand arrows shot, and then she sighed and stretched and found the sore spots with her fingers and his heart broke inside his chest again.

  
_I don't deserve this._

  
“Come,” he said. He couldn’t fully hide the sadness in his voice. But she just smiled at him when she turned around.

  
They’d shared a tent a handful of times, always chastely, in separate bedrolls, and for a minute that was the position they assumed. Then she rolled onto her side and buried her face in the crook of his neck and threw her leg over his hip.

  
“I like the freckles on your shoulders,” she murmured against his skin. “I never noticed them before.”

  
He rested a hand on her waist, lightly. He searched for the words he wanted to say to her but he had to filter all of them through lies. _You make me feel alive (more alive than I have felt in lifetimes). I will protect you from the whole world (but not from myself). You are more beautiful than a hundred ancient marvels (but I don’t think I can give them up for you)._ So he offered her the only truth he could.

  
“Ar lath ma, vhenan’ara.”

  
She burrowed closer, kissed his neck.

  
“I’m still afraid,” she said a moment later.

  
He wrapped his arms around her more securely now. How many more times would he be selfish enough to allow this? He tried to memorize every detail of how it felt, but ultimately all he could do was reply: “So am I.”

 

****  
Nobody needs to know  
****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took that last line of the song out and put it back in about 3 times so I guess it’s staying. Next time we’ll see how Lavellan reacts to this development with "That Would Be Enough."


	5. That Would Be Enough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More smutty smutty smut ahead! This is one of my favorite songs from Hamilton and I think it so perfectly sums up Lavellan’s feelings for Solas during DA:I (although I did remove one line from a verse here, only because it referenced them being married). So much of Eliza’s plot arc mirrors the way I imagine Lavellan’s - in love with a complicated man, hoping against hope that her love can help save him from himself, betrayed by him, but still forgiving at the end of the day. (But we’ll get to all those songs later!)

Ellana woke alone the next morning, but still all she could do was smile. She still ached pleasantly between her legs and that meant it was all real. She wished she didn't have a hundred other things to do that day before she could see him again. She knew it wasn't just propriety that made him leave in the night. This was his dance - get too close, then move away.

  
Well, if she had any say in it, that was going to end.

  
One marathon session with her councilors (did it really take an entire hour to go over Nevarran noble families so she would understand why it was important to curry the Forsythia’s favor?) and another, longer training session with her new master (she was going to be sore all over), she had nothing left for the day. She didn't even bother cleaning up before going to the rotunda. She couldn’t help but smile when she thought of the state Solas had seen her in the night before.

  
“Someone’s had a good day,” Varric said as she passed him. “What on earth is the reason for that smile?”

  
“Oh, nothing. But you might want to check your quarters. I saw Sera with jars of bees again today.”

  
That would keep Skyhold’s biggest gossip occupied enough not to eavesdrop. When she entered the rotunda she didn't see Solas at first, but the smell of paint gave it away. He was up on a scaffold, seemingly unaware of her presence. She watched him for a moment, as she had so many times before - how singular his focus was, the fluid, sure motions of his body as he painted - except now she could remember the same singularity and fluidity in a context that made the heat rise in her. The certainty wasn't there, though, at least not the whole time. That was what she needed to fix.

  
“What’s this one about?”

It wasn't the explanation she wanted so much as the sound of his voice. Warm, deep, lilting, passion coursing underneath politeness. He talked about color and texture and shape and their adventures and she wanted to climb up the scaffold and take him there. If only she couldn't hear Dorian above, bickering with Grand Enchater Fiona, and Leliana above that, scolding an errant crow.  
  
“I was thinking that when you’d reached a stopping point, we could have dinner in my quarters,” Ellana said.

  
He tensed almost instantly. Who had done this to him? Why was he so afraid to trust? But she knew better now. She’d been the one to roll him over and take him when he wanted to pull away. If she pressed him, gently, he would give in.

  
“We would be missed in the great hall,” he said.

  
“It’s not that unusual for either of us to take a meal alone. We don't even have to go to my quarters if you think anyone would notice.”

  
“I need to go down to the archive and finish cataloguing,” he said, but it was half-hearted.

  
“Then I’ll meet you there,” she said.

  
“You are persistence itself,” he sighed, but there was a chuckle behind the words.

  
“Is that the kind of spirit I would be?”

 

“I have better theories than that one.”

  
“So share them over dinner,” she said.

  
She got down to the archives before him, but didn't have to wait long. It still brought a secret thrill to the pit of her stomach to watch him descend, to know that he was here because she asked him to be. The thrill grew because this was something else they had never done.

  
“So,” he said he sat down. “Is there something you wanted to discuss?”

  
His voice was so measured, his gaze so guarded. She couldn’t resist. A little bluntness couldn’t hurt that much.

  
“I was hoping to talk about how good it was to have you inside me last night,” she said, eating a grape, never taking her eyes off his. A faint flush rose to his cheeks.

  
“I am pleased to hear you enjoyed yourself. I - worried briefly that I was not as gentle or attentive as I could have been.”

  
That worry in his voice, and the knowledge that his control had slipped - why was it getting hotter in this drafty little room?

  
“You don't need to worry. I’m not an Orlesian doll. Last night was - exactly what I wanted it to be.”

  
She touched the back of his hand. After a moment, he turned it over and laced their fingers. He wasn't saying it, but the look was in his eyes. That sad, faraway look. That ‘I’m about to pull away’ look.

  
“Solas,” she said. “I want to speak frankly with you. Can I?”

  
“Always. I treasure your honesty.”

  
She took a breath. She’d practiced this running drills in the courtyard, her mind half on when to strike and half on what to say. Same skill, really. “I don’t know why you always pull away from me and then come back. I do know there are things in your past that hurt you that you won't or can't tell me. I know you keep saying that you are afraid to hurt me. But - I want this. I want us. In whatever form that takes. You don't have to tell me everything. I just - I want you. In my life, in my bed - for however long I can have you.”

  
She’d managed to hold his gaze but now she had to look away. Her words were faltering. He wasn't responding in any way she could discern. It was so much easier with people in her clan, so much clearer.

  
“We don't even have to tell anyone or stay together every night or any of that just - just - ”

  
He tilted her head back up and she drank in the sight of him, cheekbones and chin and blue, blue eyes and soft lips and creators if he said no now -

  
“Just - stay with me when you’re with me. Does that even make sense? Don't leave me wondering from day to day - ”

  
He kissed her, soft and slow. He finished, and drew back just far enough to take a breath.

  
“Oh, my love,” he murmured, perhaps more to himself than her.

  
This time she kissed him. She realized as he cradled her face that they had never really kissed like this before. Like there was time. Eventually the kiss ended, and he rested his forehead against hers and said: “I can give you that much.”

  
She smiled. “Just to clarify, when you say you can give me that much, you don’t just mean that you can keep kissing me, right? I was hoping for a repeat of last night’s performance.”

  
He smiled too now, really just a quirk of his lips and eyebrows. She had realized by now that there were many things he expressed that most people didn’t notice. “Oh? As I said before, I did not think it that impressive.”

  
“Well then, vhenan,” she said, sliding off of her chair and onto his, straddling his lap. “Impress me.”

 

****  
I don’t pretend to know  
The challenges you’re facing  
The worlds you keep erasing and creating in your mind  
But I’m not afraid  
As long as you come home at the end of the day  
That would be enough  
****

 

They decided to keep it hidden. They were both private people by nature. For her especially - constantly in the spotlight, constantly under scrutiny of every kind - it was good to have a retreat. Something she kept close under her armor, a secret warmth. Sometimes he would rest his hand on the small of her back when they were in the rear of the party, or stay up for part of her watch so they could talk, uninterrupted. She brought him every scrap of paper or book she found in their travels and helped him organize it on the archive. They went scouting together instead of alone, and would sit together on a cliff overlooking Crestwood, or on the edge of a mesa in the Western Approach, and just absorb what was around them.

  
“I think this is the best part of what’s happened,” Lavellan said one day, looking out over that impressive expanse. “All these places I never would have seen.”

  
“Travel is one of life’s greatest pleasures,” he responded.

  
She took his hand. “It’s almost the best part of what’s happened.”

  
He leaned against her but did not meet her gaze.

  
“Inquisitor? Did you find a place to camp?”

  
They sprang apart before Cassandra rounded the bend. There were many times when she thought a moment like that would give them away. Vivienne had already commented on “longing looks” between them. Sera assumed they were together since they were the only other elves around. Then there was another day in the Western Approach, hunting for a shard near Coracavus. Lavellan could see it, but it was up a series of cliffs.

  
“There’s no way,” Blackwall said. “You’d have to have glue on your hands and feet.”

  
Lavellan removed her bow and quiver and pack. “I can do it.”

  
“Inquisitor, is this worth it? If you fall and hurt yourself -”

  
“Cassandra, don't worry yourself! This is the last one the ocularum revealed.”

  
Lavellan loved climbing, tumbling, flipping - she’d always been good at it, and it always made her feel so alive, so in her body, so powerful. As she scaled the rocky slope and hopped from ledge to ledge, the gleaming shard just a few feet away, she lost sight of everything else. There was just the next twist, the next leap - the next slip -

  
“Vhenan!”

  
Solas’s voice was as forceful as the barrier he projected toward her. She scrambled back on top of the ledge and stood staring down at them. Solas’s face was tight with worry, his eyes hard, but it was Cassandra and Blackwall she stared at. Had they heard what he said? They didn’t seem to react. Maybe they didn't hear vhenan as any different than lethallan, his usual name for her. Maybe the absolute panic in his voice didn’t sound any different than when one of them fell in battle.

  
When she slid down the canyon wall with the shard in hand, Blackwall was the one who seized it from her.

  
“That’s enough from you for one day. Always jumping all over the place… you’re going to get yourself killed.”

  
“So then you don’t want to watch me do a backflip on the edge of the battlements when we get back? There’s a pretty good wager going on how many I can do before I fall and die or run out of space.”

  
“Inquisitor, if anyone asks me about you when they write the history books, the first thing I will tell them is how very funny you found yourself.”

  
Ellana couldn’t help but smile. It had taken her a few months to relax into her usual self around her companions. Now she could afford to be sarcastic and enjoy how it got a rise out of them. Especially Cassandra. She looked to Solas but he was not smiling either. Maybe it wasn’t so funny this time.

  
“Alright. No more climbing cliffs. I’ll make dinner at camp tonight to make up for my poor judgment.”

  
When their simple meal was done, she also volunteered for first watch. She was alone, looking up at the stars, tracing the constellations she knew and the ones she didn't, when she heard a tent rustle behind her. She turned, thinking it was Blackwall awake early for his watch, to see that it was Solas.

  
“You can't sleep?” She asked. That was a rare occasion. He was adept at meditating, moving from Fade to waking to Fade again. He came and sat behind her, drawing her back against his chest. His hands were on her stomach and his lips at her neck, not kissing so much as leaning.

  
“You are a fool,” he said, the words vibrating along her skin.

  
She tried to turn around and look at him, but he held her still. “You’re the one who called me vhenan in front of them.”

  
“They don’t know what it means,” he said. “And me calling you that won’t get you killed.”

  
She shifted again but he still held her tight. One of his hands was moving lower, idly playing with the laces of her pants. She'd chosen not to wear armor for her watch, given how hot it was.

  
“Solas,” she said softly. Cassandra and Blackwall were mere feet away, even if they were in their tents. He was pulling at the laces now. Slowly. Deliberately.

  
“You’re a fool, and this is your punishment,” he said, one finger tracing designs on her smalls. “I’m not setting a single ward. You can’t make a sound.”

  
It wasn’t long before his fingers were there, theretherethere, right where she wanted them but just not enough, not fast enough, not enough pressure, and he wasn’t letting her turn and kiss him, and then they pumping in and out of her, first one than two, and she took one long ragged breath before he covered her mouth.

  
“Careful. You wouldn't want me to stop now.”

  
His magic flowed over her then, lighting every nerve on fire, and it was the worst kind of torture, having him but not all of him, not able to see him, not able to kiss him, not able to cry out, so close but not coming yet for fuck’s sake she would never even jump over a fallen log again if he would just -

  
“Please,” she whispered, and she felt rather than heard the growl in his throat as he withdrew his fingers and began stroking her pearl again and again. They were hot and slick now from being inside her and it was good good good, so good, she felt that quiver below her belly button and the rising wave behind it and this time he didn't stop and she was shaking, cunt rippling, biting down on his fingers over her mouth, and she wasn't sure if the stars she saw were real or behind her eyes.

  
Solas’s grip on her loosened, and he leaned back. When he returned he was offering her one of their waterskins.

  
“Drink,” his voice was softer now. No hard, commanding edge like before. Ellana still felt limp and relieved, but a vague unease was creeping in too. He was pulling away, getting ready to stand up and return to his tent. It felt like before.

  
“No,” she said, turning. “You are not going back to bed.”

  
“You don’t need to worry about reciprocating,” he said, his voice even. Almost dispassionate. But she knew him well enough now. His lips were drawn tight. Something was bothering him.

  
“No. You don’t come out here and play some - game with me and then go back.”

  
“Game?”

  
Both of their voices were getting louder. Lavellan lowered hers.

  
“You refuse to touch me the entire time we’re out here, saying it wouldn’t be prudent and there isn’t enough privacy. You were obviously upset by me nearly falling. You don’t say anything about it, though. You just - come out here and - and set all the rules and then pull away. That’s not intimacy - it’s control.”

  
That struck a nerve. His mouth went slack with shock for a moment before he recovered himself.

  
“If - you did not consent to what I did you should have - ”

  
“Of course I wanted you to touch me. Just - ”

  
She leaned across the space that separated them and took his face in her hands and kissed him, hard at first, her lips shut tight. He responded in kind, and she knew at once why he wasn’t kissing her before. She felt it now, sure as any magic. His fear. His real, raw fear. So she pulled back and ran her thumbs over his cheekbones. Kissed him again, one soft, small kiss.

  
“I am sorry I frightened you.”

  
“I know we all place ourselves in danger. We must. But why would you do something dangerous when it wasn’t absolutely necessary?”

  
She shrugged, dropping her hands from his face. “Didn’t you describe yourself to Blackwall as a cocky, headstrong youth? So was I. And I’m closer to my youth than you are, hahren.”

  
He butted his forehead against hers. “Emma lath, you will undo me.”

  
She trailed one hand down his chest, rested it on his hip. “Yes, if you’ll let me. Wards this time?”

  
“That would hardly be fair after what I put you through.”

  
She grinned. “Good.”

  
Later, after her mouth around him left him spent, slack, and entirely too relaxed, he put an arm around her waist while she tended the fire.

  
“This is the best part about what’s happened,” he said.

  
“If it took fighting a war for us to meet, it will have been worth it,” she said.

  
And she saw it - that pain in his eyes, deeper than any cave they’d explored, that pain that Cole called ancient when she asked him about it. She’d struck some kind of nerve. She wanted to ask but she knew what would happen. So she just traced the outline of his jaw.

  
“You can go back to sleep, vhenan. You need your rest.”

  
He kissed her and then stood and left without another word. This was what he needed. He needed time and space - and her. Of that she was certain now. Someday he would tell her what it was that lurked inside him, that made him want to flee. For now, he would stay.

 

****  
Oh, let me be a part of the narrative  
In the story they will write someday  
Let this moment be the first chapter  
Where you decide to stay  
And I would be enough  
And we would be enough  
That would be enough  
****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh, the ending of that song. So good. So fitting. If only Solas would listen!! I also threw in a line of dialogue from "Helpless" just for fun. Couldn't help myself. Next: "The Story of Tonight," featuring dragons, more smut, and some fun with the companions!


	6. The Story of Tonight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Easily one of my favorite parts of DA:I was the point when I triggered all of the companion quests and got to hang out with everyone! So much fun. I just had to pay tribute to it in some way. What better than with a drunken song about friendship and rebellion?
> 
> Also, smut ahead. There wasn’t supposed to be any but I couldn't stop them!

****  
Raise a glass to freedom  
Something they can never take away  
No matter what they tell you  
Let’s have another round tonight  
Raise a glass to the four of us  
Tomorrow there’ll be more of us  
Telling the story of tonight  
****

 

There was always something that needed fixing. That was always the first thought on Ellana’s mind when she woke. What needs to be fixed today? The tone she thought it in varied. Sometimes she woke tired and cold and sore in Emprise du Lion and thought it in a snarl. Sometimes she woke from dreams of Corypheus, his hands around her throat, the Breach in the sky above him, and she thought it in desperation. Then there were the days she woke up and went down to the main hall and all of them were there - her new clan, all these people that should never have even met, let alone got along or found common ground. On those days she would stand at the door to her quarters and watch them and think: what needs fixing today? Whatever it is, we can take it.  
There were many times that it was something one of them needed fixed. She would never forget the guilt in Cassandra’s voice when she asked if Inquisition resources could be retasked to find the Seekers. Cassandra! Who had shed more blood than almost any of them, who was practically the reason the Inquisition existed. It had been months now since she undertook training to improve her combat skills and she no longer felt like she depended on them utterly, but she still owed all of them - all of them - so much.

  
“Of course,” was always her answer. “How can I help?”

  
That’s how she came to be on the Storm Coast, watching anxiously as the Dreadnought came closer to shore. She was anxious not only to recruit the Qunari, but because of the look on Bull's face, watching his Chargers below. She cared for them, too. We are going to fix this, she thought. Then the Venatori plan to attack became clear, and of course the answer was to pull the Chargers back, because those were her _people_ down there.

  
It wasn’t until later, lying in her tent, that the thoughts ran through her head over and over. She’d just chosen her people over a Qunari alliance. Over all those resources. Over destroying the Venatori. What if this would have been the moment when people saw the Qunari differently? What if it had opened a channel? What if every time she went to help one of her friends, she gave up time and resources that would be better spent stopping Corypheus? It was so simple with her clan, before. Even if she always felt like half an outsider, she knew the best decision was always the one that helped the most of them. The clan was everything. She wanted it to be that way with these companions of hers. When the whole world was your clan, what did you do?

  
The tent rustled - Solas’s watch was over. One of the benefits of Bull and Dorian’s blossoming romance was that no one questioned them sharing a tent when it was the four of them in the field. She sat up to greet him.

  
“Why are you still awake?” he said, laying down his staff and beginning to at last remove his armor.

 

“Did I do the right thing today? Telling Bull to pull the Chargers back?”

 

“Of course. They are treasured allies, and an alliance with the Qun may not have been as beneficial as you would have thought.”

  
“But that’s not why I did it,” she said.

  
“Then why?”

  
“Because it would hurt Bull if they were gone. Because it would hurt me. I made a decision that could affect the Inquisition - the entirety of Thedas - just for myself,” she took a breath. Her throat was closing up. “What if I’m never strong enough to do the opposite? Is building up this inner circle around myself a weakness or a strength?”

  
Solas was silent. Not only silent, but frozen in place. Staring at her. She needed him and he was frozen.

  
“My heart,” he said. “You ask a question that has plagued many a great leader. Your kindness - your empathy - is one of your greatest strengths. It is what makes people respect and follow you. But - it is true that there may come a time where you may need to crush your own heart, in order to do what is truly necessary.”

  
They were not comforting words. She wanted to reach out but everything in his posture warned against it. What had she done wrong? He was carefully preparing for bed, ignoring her eyes, as they had before they became lovers. She was too tired to question it. It wasn’t like he would respond anyway. So she lay down with her back facing to him without another word. She tried to sleep but instead slipped in and out of fitful rest. Then at some point in the night, Solas put his hand on her hip and drew her close.

  
“Ma sa’lath,” he said, so softly that he must have been trying not to wake her. “Ir abelas.”

  
“For what?” She asked. He tensed behind her. Another nerve. He was riddled with pressure points that she was still learning.

  
“For many things,” he said. “Rest.”

  
She didn't ask, reaching down to squeeze his hand instead. Neither of them slept well that night. She was haunted by the feeling she always strove to push away: they were on borrowed time, the two of them.

  
By the time they returned to Skyhold she had pushed the feeling away, for the most part. It still didn't stop the others noticing her quiet demeanor.

  
“You know, boss,” Bull said one night at the Herald’s Rest. “You’ve done a lot for all of us. We’ve never gotten to do much for you in return. We didn’t even get to go help Clan Lavellan when they needed it. So - is there anything you need?”

  
“Isn’t that droopy ears’ job to ask?” said Sera.

  
Ellana snorted. Solas wasn’t there, of course. Things were fine between them, she kept reassuring herself. He’d brought her tea in the war room that afternoon and gave her a goodnight kiss before she left for the tavern.

  
“I didn't mean _that_ kind of need. Just - you know - everything you do can't be easy. Need someone to buy you another round? Beat you with a stick?”

  
“I am not sure if you should take him up on that offer,” Dorian said. “I’m still sore.”

  
“Always with the sex. You two have such one track minds.”

  
“Most people do. It’s always there and never spoken.” Cole was sitting on the bar now. He must have heard their voices.

  
Maybe that was what felt off with Solas. When was the last time they had lain together? Not at all in the Storm Coast. That meant at least 3 weeks. Had she done something wrong?

  
“He’d welcome you if you went to him,” Cole said, his head cocked towards Ellana. “He’s noticed it too.”

  
“Does anyone ever understand what this thing is saying?” Sera asked.

  
“Cole is not a thing,” Ellana chided. “And anyway, Bull, that is kind of you to ask. I’m sure I will think of something.”

  
She finished her drink and headed back to the main hall. Hesitated at the door to the rotunda. Then went upstairs to her quarters. That night she dreamt again of Haven, of Corypheus’s hands around her throat. The archdemon’s mouth reached out to devour her, wreathed in flame - and then she was awake, in Skyhold. Wrapped in cold and not in heat. But also alone. Solas had not been in the Fade with her that night.

  
She wanted to be angry but how could she? He made it clear that he had hesitations. She told him they didn't need to be public in their affection or spend every night together or even - name whatever it was they had. She couldn’t change the game now. So even though she wanted to go straight to him and curl into his arms, or yell at him, or both, she went to the hall. Varric, Bull, Blackwall, and Cassandra were already there eating. She sat down to join them.

  
“Good morning, Inquisitor!” Varric said. “Ready for more earth shattering decisions today? I hear no less than 12 letters arrived for you last night.”

  
She sighed. “Is there tea? Or better yet, that coffee stuff Josephine hoards?”

  
“Stop acting like a sulking child, or I will get that stick I mentioned,” Bull said. “What’s wrong?”

  
“You do look tired,” Cassandra offered.

  
“Just bad dreams.”

  
“About what?” Blackwall asked.

  
“Oh, the usual. Immortal magisters and archdemons with a taste for my blood. Things I have no idea how to kill. Isn’t that what you dream about, Blackwall?”

  
He looked down at his plate, pushing the potatoes around. “Sorry I asked.”

  
“No - I’m sorry. Maybe Bull _should_ beat me with a stick.”

  
“Sounds like a plan to me!” He said. “Although, there are other ways of facing your fears. I don't think we can do much about Corypheus, but what about that archdemon? What if we gave you - a practice run?”

  
“A practice run?”

  
“Remember when we were in the Hinterlands and we saw that dragon, and you all chickened out like a bunch of dickless children?”

  
“You mean wisely decided to avoid a pointless and dangerous fight?” Cassandra said, her words clipped and irritated.

  
“Yeah, that. If we go and fight it, maybe you’ll feel less afraid of the archdemon.”

  
“Or, you know, I’ll be dead,” Ellana retorted.

  
“Oh come on. Fighting dragons is _fun_. You hide in the back all stealthy like and stick it full of arrows, I run up all bellow at it so it focuses on me, Solas and Dorian blast it to bits with fire and lightning and crap. And then we all come back here and get shitfaced and turn the skull into a new throne for you.”

  
“You should come to Nevarra some time, Bull,” Cassandra snorted. “You’d fit right in.”

  
“We’ve got some time - our scouts are still figuring out a way through the Arbor Wilds,” the Qunari pointed out.

  
“There are requisitions to be filled in the Hinterlands, now that we have obsidian,” Cassandra offered.

  
“It would make a great addition to the book,” Varric said.

  
Ellana wanted to protest, but Cassandra was already scolding Varric for even considering a book, and Bull and Blackwall both looked so hopeful.

  
“Very well,” she sighed. “Let’s go kill a dragon.”

  
Dorian begged not to go, citing that he was too pretty and young to die in the mouth of some beast, but both Blackwall and Bull committed. So now it was time to ask Solas. She fidgeted with her thieves’ tools by the door to the rotunda for a moment before going in, as if it would be locked. He was seated when she entered, looking up at one of his murals. He was almost done.

  
“Hello,” he said when he saw her, his voice soft. She walked up to his desk and said nothing for a moment. Then he stood. “I must apologize again to you. I am sorry we have not spoken much since the mission with the Qunari. I have not been avoiding you on purpose. It just seemed that you wanted space.” He was trying to keep the words even and measured, but they came out in more of a rush than usual all the same.

  
“I thought it seemed like you wanted space,” Ellana replied. “Clearly I said things that upset you that night.”

  
“No. You merely expressed a fear I have had myself for many years. One I have tried to ignore. But the fact that we fear the same thing should not drive us apart.” He was standing closer to her now, close enough that their hands brushed.

  
“I agree,” she said. “So, to make it up to me, you should give me something.”

  
“Oh? Something tells me you have ideas.”

  
“Just something small. Like a dragon's head.”

  
“Come again?”

  
“It’s all Bull’s idea. I have had so many nightmares about that archdemon. He thinks learning to fight a dragon will make me feel more confident about the battle to come.”

  
“It’s not a bad idea. I take it he wants to track down the one in the Hinterlands?”

  
“Yes. You, me, him, and Blackwall. We invited the Vint, but apparently he’s afraid.” She made sure her voice carried. She was rewarded with a disgusted noise from the next level up.

  
“The Vint is smarter than all of you put together!” He shouted down.

  
“Well, now I need to go just to prove him wrong,” Solas said.

  
It was certainly a fight she would never forget. She was shaking as they rounded the corner to see the glittering valley where the dragon hunted. She could hardly believe they ran _forward_ when she retreated deeper in. And when the beast landed before them, bellowing, and Ellana leapt away, landing a poisoned arrow straight in its eye, she thrummed from head to toe. They _could_ do this. They could dodge and weave and command and strike together. When the dragon at last lay still, Ellana was still shaking, but from exhilaration.

  
“Pretty fucking great, right boss?” Bull said. “Let’s get those soldiers down here to start breaking this down.”

  
“Take care with the skull,” she said. “Josephine already has that damned party all arranged.”

  
That night she lay in her tent with Solas and he traced idle shapes on her bare stomach.

  
“Do you feel less afraid now?”

  
“Honestly? Only a little,” she said. “Mostly what I feel is sore.”

  
“Fear is a good thing,” he said. “It shows that you are aware of the odds, of the impact of your actions. I would be more worried if you were no longer afraid.”

  
“Are you worried? You always seem so calm. It’s one of the things I love about you.” The words no longer felt so foreign on her tongue. It had been six months since the first time they lay together, and even if they never talked of any kind of future, things felt somehow settled between them, other than whatever strange rift had come between them after the mission with the Qunari. He reached out and touched her cheek.

  
“Of course I am. You walk a narrow and dangerous path. There are a hundred things on it that I can't protect you from. But at least I can take care of you while you walk it.”

  
He was leaning over her now, kissing her forehead, her nose, her chin, and then her throat. He pulled down the neck of her tunic to kiss her collarbones. The hand on her stomach moved further downward.

  
“I wasn’t kidding when I said I was sore,” Ellana said. “I don’t know how enthusiastic I can - ” His whole hand was under her smalls, cupping her groin, delightfully warm and solid.

  
“Then you will just have to lie back,” he said.

  
He withdrew his hand so he could help her out of her tunic. She winced at the soreness in her arms and he hummed sadly at the motion, bending down to kiss her shoulders and arms.

  
“Ma sa’lath,” he whispered against your skin. “You fight so hard. Do you know how much I love watching you? You’re so swift, so fierce.”

  
He was sliding off her smalls now, running traces of energy over her skin. Then he himself was sliding down, leaving a kiss on her hip bone. When his breath ghosted over her mound she twitched. They’d done this a few times before but she was always uncertain about it, inevitably drawing him back up to her face. It was not something her previous lovers did often enough for her to be used to it, to know what she needed.

  
“Vhenan - ” She said.

  
“I know,” he said, looking up at her. “Relax. Let me care for you.”

  
“And what about you?”

  
“I enjoy unraveling what makes you shudder.” Of course that was it. The thought brought a surge of affectionate irritation to her chest. She was a puzzle, and he had to solve every puzzle he found.

  
“You’re so stubborn,” Ellana sighed.

  
“Yes,” he smiled. “Let me show you how stubborn.”

  
He kissed the inside of her thighs, her opening, her belly, before finally settling on that most sensitive spot. She squirmed against him until he finally used his tongue, only the tip now, circling it endlessly, flicking it, rubbing it. Her breath caught as she felt the nub swell further - it felt good but too good, she curled her toes not from anticipation but from the uncertainty of what she was feeling. He stopped and looked up.

  
“Ah. Slower then.”

  
He ran a hand up her stomach and down again, a soothing motion that warmed her skin. Then he ran his tongue over her from slit to nub again, his whole tongue flattened this time, and when he pressed it at the swollen spot she rocked her hips down and saw sparks. He hummed in approval and she did it again and he hummed and it vibrated through her. He moved back a little and she already missed the contact.

  
“That’s better, yes? Take what you need of me. Move how you need. I’m here, ma haurasha.”

  
His tongue was there again, warm and firm and wet and she rocked her hips over and over and felt the sweet rising tide in her and every now and then he would flutter the tip of it against that spot and how did she end up here, in this tent with this man, so gentle and so giving? She’d take every fear, every danger, every battle that came with the Anchor if it meant he just wouldn't stop licking her _there_ -

  
She kept moving her hips but it was erratic now. She couldn’t move fast enough, she was right on the edge but she didn’t know how to get over, didn’t even really know what to ask for, and then a muscle in her back twinged and without meaning to she was thinking about the dragon and the heat of its fire and the long journey back to Skyhold and it felt so good but -

  
Then he closed his lips around her and sucked, and all at once her world narrowed to that one spot, that one sensation, and he worked his lips gently over her and then she came, head spinning, body shaking, toes curling. And for a moment, there was nothing at all in her mind. Just a warm, black, nothingness. Then she felt him stir and kiss her belly.

  
“Good?” He asked. She nodded and it won her a chuckle. “We will have to try again another time. I am feeling quite drained today. I had little energy to use my magic.” He laid down beside her and then she finally felt like she could use her limbs again, so she reached out to take hold of the pendant at his chest.

  
“Is that all for tonight?”

  
“You said you were sore.”

  
“Well, not _everywhere_ ,” she said, rubbing her legs together and loving the way the motion drew his eyes down her body. She let go of the pendant and took his hand instead, guiding it to the wetness all over her thighs.

  
“It would be a shame to let that go to waste, ma haurasha,” he said.

  
“What does that mean?”

  
“You can't tell me you haven't heard it from a lover before.”

  
“No, I haven’t.”

  
He smiled, an unusually wicked smile, and said: “Roll onto your side.”

  
She did, and behind her she heard the rustling of his clothes coming off. Then he was behind her, all warm skin and male scent. He coaxed open her legs and she felt the tip of him press at her entrance.

  
“Haurasha is honey,” he said. The last syllable strained as he guided himself into her and she hissed at the new angle. He left his hand at the slick place where they were joined. His lips were right at her ear. “But not the kind that bees make.”

  
Now his hand rubbed back and forth, spreading the wetness around.

  
“Oh,” she managed. He chuckled, and then he began to move, rocking gently against her.

  
“It’s a marvelous nickname,” he said, a little more breathy than before. “Fenedhis. This may not take me long.”

  
She couldn’t move much, but she could wriggle her hips, push back against him, making him swear again.

  
“Whenever you’re ready, ma haurasha,” she said, the word both foreign and delightful on her tongue.

  
He groaned against her neck, rocking faster. She was so full of him like this, stretched so tight, each of his movements hitting that sweet spot inside her. It had to be exquisite for him, based on his shallow breaths. He’d done such a good job caring for her. What could she do now, for him? She writhed again, moving her hips in a little circle that made them both shudder, and then contracted her walls around him.

  
“Ellana - ” he said sharply, her name a plea on his lips. “Can I - ”

  
She tightened herself around him again and with a groan he rocked hard into her. At that angle she could feel every pulse of him as he came and it made her shiver to think of it, one last little spasm of pleasure that echoed what he did to her before. Then he stilled, his cheek pressed to hers.

  
“You are my undoing,” he whispered after a moment.

  
“Good,” she said. “I like feeling you come undone.”

  
He did not respond. He lingered another moment then withdrew and rolled away, coming back with a clean rag that he used to wipe away the moisture between her legs. She rolled onto her back and then he looked into her eyes, searchingly.

  
“Ar lath ma,” she said. It was more an offering than a statement.

  
“Ar lath ma,” he replied, quietly. “Let us rest.”

  
The next morning they started the journey back to Skyhold, and despite the lingering soreness, Ellana did feel lighter. They had taken down a dragon. They were going to get to the temple in the Arbor Wilds before Corypheus. Bull joked about how the archdemon was already good as dead. Blackwall complimented her on how much she had grown as a tactician and soldier in the last year. And, of course, she had Solas. Whatever needed fixing, they could do it.

  
Of course, the wild party when they got back helped. She didn't even know what vile drink Bull kept giving her, but before long she was shouting “anaan” right alongside him and the Chargers. Sera was literally swinging from the rafters, until she lost the coordination to do so. Cullen was roaring with laughter, onto at least his third chess game with Blackwall. Vivienne and Josephine were occupied with their noble friends, but even their cheeks were rosier than usual. For once, even Solas was there, a glass of wine in his hand, looking over Blackwall and Cullen’s game and offering cryptic, smiling advice to both sides. The joy inside Ellana was a warm, steady pulse, real and solid - or maybe it was the drink.

  
“Anyone down for a game of Wicked Grace?” Varric called from an empty table.

  
“Always!” Ellana called, heading towards him. Josephine heard and headed over as well, along with Cassandra, to her surprise. Then Bull came along, and finally Solas.

  
“Chuckles! Didn't think you played,” Varric said.

  
“Tonight seems like just the occasion to learn,” Solas said.

  
“Don’t trust him!” Blackwall called out. “He’s the reason I walked away from that game of Diamondback naked!”

  
“Didn’t peg you as someone who was good at getting people’s clothes off, elf,” Bull said, but his one eye was twinkling. Ellana flushed, suddenly uncertain if Solas had set wards that night in the Hinterlands.

  
“Perhaps I have many hidden talents,” Solas said evenly. Ellana snorted in spite of herself, trying to hide the sound by drinking more of the mysterious Qunari drink. “Is there something you need, ma haurasha?”

  
A bolt of desire went straight below her belly. Maybe it was a magic pet name. She glanced around at their companions but once again, if anyone of them registered that it was a different nickname than usual, they gave no sign. When she furtively met Solas’s eyes, she saw immediately that it was the point.

  
“What I need,” Ellana said. “Is for you to deal me in.”

  
The next day, when she was dry mouthed and afraid that her head would split in two, Ellana tried to remember the rest of the night. When Solas woke beside her, she asked him. He just smiled.

  
“Would you like to hear about how you drunkenly declared your love for everyone in the Herald’s Rest, but especially for those at the table with us? Or how you nearly started giving away articles of clothing once you’d run out of money?”

  
“ _Nearly_?”

  
“I may have intervened. Or how you sang that song Maryden wrote for Sera, just to punish her for going upstairs to bed?” Now he grinned, like a hunter who knows its prey is well and truly caught. “Or shall I tell you how you were so flustered by the things I was saying to you in Elvhen as we played, all the things no one but you and I could understand, that I had to stop you from touching me under the table?”

  
“ _No_  - we didn’t - ”

  
“Don’t alarm yourself. I convinced you to control your urges. You were not very pleased with me, though. You called me a trickster and said you hoped the Dread Wolf took me.”

  
He laughed as he said the words, but it was a laugh in his chest and throat. A strangely sad laugh. For that, as much as for the pounding in her head, Ellana burrowed closer to him and pressed her face to his bare chest.

  
“Let us never speak of this again,” she grumbled.

  
“Don’t worry, vhenan. We won’t. However, Varric assures me it's going in the book.”

  
“Dread Wolf take that dwarf.”

  
That was going to be her legacy - the drunken Inquisitor making an ass of herself after killing a dragon. She spent the morning feeling irritated with herself, particularly after Solas left to discreetly find the way back to his own quarters. She was a symbol of hope and fear - not a foolish adolescent with a taste for summer wine. But when she finally descended, and all her companions were seated there, cheering and whooping and smiling knowing smiles, she found herself hard pressed to care about any legacy other than their friendship.

 

****  
They’ll tell the story of tonight  
****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was definitely a chapter that started off as a vague idea and then took several turns that I did not expect! Like weird angst (dammit Solavellan) and smut (I am absolutely tickled by the pet name ma haurasha - credit to FenxShiral for it - because I hate the pet name ‘honey’ in real life but now it has a dirty twist). Hope you enjoyed it!


	7. Wait For It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are a lot of great parallels between Solas and both Hamilton and Burr (which makes sense, since those two characters are two sides of the same coin). Every time I listen to this song, I am so impressed by how well it fits my vision of him!
> 
> That said, I *did* have to do some editing in the last verse here to remove specific references to Hamilton/change the pronouns because I just loved that verse so much and didn’t want to not use it. Hurray for artistic license!

Solas was going to tell her.

He had to. There was no other way. Well, there was another way. But lying there in her quarters in Skyhold, watching her sleep (her back was to him, the sheet around her waist, he could observe the perfect curve of her spine and her long lovely neck) - the other way was intolerable.

But what would she say? 

She was the kindest person he knew, the most forgiving. He’d been with her every morning before she would go down to judge a prisoner. She was always too sick to eat, too afraid to even reread Josephine’s notes on the case again. Skyhold’s prisons and work camps were full of people she could not bring herself to execute, even those who truly deserved it. She had a heart so big she tramped all over half of Thedas looking for red lyrium to destroy on Varric’s behalf, that she retasked Inquisition forces to find an amulet for Cole, that she faced down a snowy wyvern on Vivienne’s behalf (he hated that memory, his heart in his throat the whole time as she leapt and dove and darted out of the beast’s way). She demanded Blackwall come back, no matter what he had done in the past. How could she not forgive him, her vhenan?

She stirred and he started. She rolled over and smiled at him, rested a hand on his cheek, and closed her eyes again.

_ Tell her. Tell her now. _

“Emma lath?” He said.

Her response was a sleepy murmur that broke his heart. How did she respond so effortlessly? How was it his right to call her that? He knew most of the other members of their inner circle at least disliked him. Most people did. They all adored her (of course). He knew for a fact that she could have had Cullen here in her bed - kind, simple, doting Cullen who could hardly string words together in the presence of her smile, who had a family that would welcome her with open arms. He was sure there were others. But instead it was him.

He kissed her hair and she sighed, burrowed deeper into her covers. It was the most relaxed he’d seen her in months. Tomorrow, then. Tomorrow he would tell her. Tomorrow he would find a way to be worthy of this moment - sunlight on the floor, warm in the covers, Lavellan in his arms.

 

****

Love doesn't discriminate

Between the sinners and the saints

It takes and it takes and it takes

And we keep loving anyway

We laugh and we cry

And we break

And we make our mistakes

And if there's a reason I'm by her side

When so many have tried

Then I'm willing to wait for it

I'm willing to wait for it

****

 

It was going to be so simple. He knew the perfect place in Crestwood where the Veil was thin. Maybe thin enough that he could show her glimpses of what he spoke of. He needed her to know before they faced Corypheus, tricky as that was. It wouldn’t drive her away from him, not after he told her that he would give up his plans to tear down the Veil. He would be able to give himself fully to her then, and that would only make her stronger for that final fight.

Then they went to the Temple of Mythal. He could not forget the sight of the blue light from the ritual paths lighting up her face, her desperation for the sentinel elves’ help, for more answers about her people. He could not forget his terror when she considered drinking from the Well. Maybe she would know then. Instinctively. What would she say? What would she do?

Morrigan drank from it in the end, and if the witch knew anything afterwards, she didn’t reveal it. Still, for the first time in months, he found himself troubled. They were close - so close - to being able to defeat Corypheus. To recovering the orb. To that moment when he promised himself (and all the Elvhen whose lives he destroyed, all the People struggling now to cling on, every mage made Tranquil or imprisoned in a Circle, every person subjugated to the Qun) that he would leave as swiftly as he came when Corypheus was gone. When Ellana came to him the day after he lay with her and asked him to simply stay, to be with her when he was with her, to cease his back and forth, he deluded himself into making it - theoretical. Now it was real. Now there were plans on the war table to find Corypheus and end him.

But - maybe he did not need to go.

They were in Emprise du Lion again, helping with the rebuilding of Sahrnia, when he first began to seriously consider it.

“Boss, put that down. Your tiny little elf self can't possibly get it into the wagon.”

“Quit underestimating me,” Ellana replied, hefting the bag of supplies in. “This tiny little elf saved you from that fear demon yesterday.”

“Lucky shot! ...but thanks.”

“Come to think of it Bull, the Templar I raised was the only thing that enabled you to take out the lieutenant. Where's my thanks?” Dorian asked. He, of course, was not helping.

“Your creepy Tevinter shit is appreciated. I guess. Gonna pile on here, Solas?” Bull was grumbling, but there was also a twinkle in his eyes. These were deep scars in Thedas - prejudices that ran back hundreds of years - and yet here they were joking about them. Here they were with bodies scarred by defending each other.

For the first time, Solas really turned the thought over in his mind. Perhaps the biggest change this Inquisition could make was bringing all of them together. Proving that Dalish elf and Qunari (or Tal Vashoth) and Tevinter and Andrastian and dwarf and apostate and Circle Mage and spirit alike could unite - could be friends.

“Bull, I know that with every fearless charge you make, you protect all of us,” he said.

“Hah! Chuckles knows which side his bread is buttered on. See if I attract the attention of the next shit head who makes a go at either of you.”

“Well, I can slip into the shadows at a moment’s notice,” Ellana said. “So I guess that leaves you to fend for your brightly-colored self, Dorian.”

“So it’s noble when Bull protects you but not when I make myself a very fashionable target? For shame, Inquisitor. Stop playing favorites.”

“Isn’t it enough that you’re my favorite?” Bull said.

As Solas watched the three of them, the thought in his mind grew wider. Maybe he could turn his back on his plans. Not just for her - her lips and cheeks red with cold and laughter, the sway in her hips as she walked through the snow, the smiles she shot him over her shoulder - but for them. Bull and Dorian and Cassandra and Vivienne and Varric and Blackwall. Even for Sera, though he doubted she’d appreciate it. Cole, himself a creature of the Fade, found every person he met full of hidden depths and redeeming graces.

He started to feel sick (the ground underneath him wasn’t moving, was it?). It didn’t need to be decided now. There were more supplies to move. The wagon to escort. There was time. He would find the right answer. He always did (did he?). There was time.

Ellana fell behind the wagon after a while so she could slip her hand into his.

“Everything alright, emma lath?” She asked, her voice low. He squeezed her hand.

“Just lost in my thoughts.” He was happy there was a way to say it that was not a lie.

 

****

I am the one thing in life I can control

I am inimitable, I am an original

I’m not falling behind or running late

I’m not standing still, I lie in wait

****

 

He was going to tell her.

They returned to Skyhold and before she had even taken off her boots she was having an impromptu council in the main hall with a recently arrived Fereldan recruit who wanted to know what he could do and she was advising him on which armor to request, which people to train with, how to interact respectfully with the various races and cultures present. Then she was embracing Josephine and asking after a dozen issues she had received letters on. She was asking Varric if he’d heard from Bianca recently. A year ago her biggest responsibility was bringing in enough kills to help feed her clan. Now she was the living, beating heart of this place. This movement.

He had to tell her.

What would she have said, if she had been there with them those thousands of years ago? If he had come to her with his plan? It was such a tantalizing thought that he had to ask.

“What will you do with the power of the Well?”

“I will make the world a better place.”

The words seared through him. These were the words he’d said over and over to himself. And now there was pain so deep in him he knew it would never go away. She could never feel that pain.

“And if you fail? If you wake up to discover that all you have done is brought ruin and death?”

He was too heated. Too angry. She was confused, not compelled. She spoke again, warily.

“Then I will take a deep breath and try again.”

Yes. Try again. You can always try again. There were second chances, even for the Dread Wolf. He was going to tell her.

“Come away with me, vhenan. You can spare a few days, yes? Morrigan still needs to sift through all the knowledge she has gained. There is something I want to show you.”

She was shocked, then pleased. They had never gone away together before. It would certainly cause a bit of a stir.

“Of course. Let me just check in with everyone - where did you want to go?”

“Crestwood,” he said. “There is a ruin there, full of dreams and memories that you should see.”

“So all this grim and fatalistic talk isn’t just a way to get me away with you and into your bed? It’s all about dreams and memories?”

“I  _ am _ grim and fatalistic. Getting you into bed is just a pleasant side effect.”

 

****

She changes the game

She plays and she raises the stakes

And if there’s a reason

She seems to thrive when so few survive, 

Then goddammit I’m willing to wait for it

****

 

There was only one word to describe the trip to Crestwood: delicious. It was the most uninterrupted time they had ever shared. Other than checking in with scouts for news and dropping off a few requisitions, there was little official business to take care of. There were no other pesky companions to tease them. They spent long stretches of it in perfectly content silence, roaming hand in hand down the road. It was the greatest stretch of time they’d spent sleeping at each other’s side. They began to develop a little routine - she doused the fire and arranged the furs while he set wards, she was always waiting for him when he came back. She asked for stories about the constellations, for the history of the places around them. And, of course, sometimes she asked for nothing at all, but reached out to him and smiled, already naked under their covers.

Ellana clearly wondered about the purpose of the trip, often asking exactly where they were going, but never outright asked why. The reason they were going was the only dark spot in his mind, the only knot in his chest. He knew he had to tell her. But he did not know what she would say.

When they reached the grove, the Veil wasn’t the only thing that left his skin tingling. He was electric with anticipation.

“I was trying to determine some way of showing you what you mean to me.”

She smirked. He loved that smirk. “I’m listening - and can offer some suggestions.”

She does have the best suggestions. “I shall bear that in mind. For now, the best gift I can offer is... the truth.”  _ This is it (or is it?). _ “You are unique. In all of Thedas, I never thought I would meet someone who could draw my attention from the Fade. You have become important to me. More important than I could have imagined.”

“As you are to me,” she said.

“Then what I must tell you - the truth - the vallaslin.”

No. This wasn’t what he meant to tell her. But he was an old, practiced liar, and the words were spilling from his lips to her horror.

“So - this is just one more thing the Dalish got wrong?”

He hurt her. It was all over her face. Her shoulders were slumped. And yet - this was only a fraction of the pain, of the confusion she’d feel (or would she?). It wasn’t fair. No matter what he said, no matter what he did, there was loss for both of them. Her view of the world, of her people - of him - would crumble. He would lose the chance to redeem what he had done to Arlathan. Or he would redeem Arlathan, and lose her. No - she deserved happiness. And, against all odds, he made her happy. So as his magic gently pulled the markings from her face as it had a hundred hundred times before, bringing with it the peace he always felt, he steadied himself, preparing the words.

_ I am Fen’Harel _ .

 

****

Life doesn’t discriminate

Between the sinners and the saints

It takes and it takes and it takes

We rise, we fall

And if there’s a reason I’m still alive

When so many have died

I’m willing to wait for it

****

 

“Ar lasa mala revas. You are free.”

She looked away, towards the reflection of her newly-bare face. Uncertainty was already clouding her eyes (lovely grey eyes, pale and piercing as a sword). He caught her chin.

“You are so beautiful,” he said, more to himself than to her. 

Now this was it. This was the last moment before he told her. The last moment when he knew for certain she was his. He kissed her, held her tightly, like it was the last time, in case it was (don't let it be the last time). Then looked down at her.

_ Ar lasa mala revas. You are free. _

They were his own words. Why did they strike dread in him?

_ And if I tell you - you won't be free. You’ll share the same burden as me. _

She was still looking up at him, still warm and safe in his arms.

_ And if I tell you - you won't be safe. _

The statues were in his periphery, calling to mind a hundred memories, sensations, places - promises.

_ And if I tell you - they won't be free. _

“I’m sorry,” he said, and the words sounded hollow even to him, like they came from someone else. “I have distracted you from your duty. It will never happen again.”

 

****

Wait for it

****

 

What was he saying? It didn’t even make sense. He was pulling away. Confusion filled her face.

“Solas?”

He kept walking away.

“Solas, you can't leave me, not now. I love you!”

She didn't even question that he was leaving. Maybe she knew in her gut that this couldn’t last. He was numb, so numb, so removed. He thought it would hurt more if they ever had to part. He thought it would be an all consuming fire of grief. Instead it was nothingness. A void. Tranquility. That was worse.

“You have a rare and marvelous spirit. In another world, perhaps…”

“Why not this one?”

_ Because I broke this one. Because it would be selfish of me to leave it broken just so I can see you smile. _

“I can’t,” he said. “I’m sorry.” 

He walked away. It was better like this. This was always the plan. This was fine. He would make everything right in the end. This was fine. Everything was fine.

 

****

Wait for it

****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sadness :( Next up we have "Satisfied" and Ellana's reaction to the break up!


	8. Satisfied

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went back and forth several times on whether or not to use “Burn” or “Satisfied” for this chapter. On the one hand, I liked “Burn” because it’s sung by Eliza, and like I said a few chapters ago, I think Eliza’s arc in Hamilton mimics Lavellan’s very nicely. But when I actually played through the break up in the game and really looked at the dialogue choices I made for my Inquisitor, she was less angry than confused and, well, unsatisfied with Solas’s answers. “Burn” will make an appearance later on, instead!

Ellana came back to Skyhold alone. That was the worst part. Worse even than the missing vallaslin. She had to walk into the main hall alone and find out that Solas wasn’t back yet. Which meant she had to ask where he was. Which meant she didn't know. And everyone gave her that look.

  
_Why are **you** asking, Inquisitor? Shouldn't you know?_

  
Josephine actually yelped when she looked up and saw Ellana’s newly bare face. She told her to go ask Solas about it. It was uncharitable and she regretted it, but she couldn’t find the words to apologize. _Josie, I am so sorry that I was an ass. It's just that one minute my lover was telling me he how beautiful I was and the next moment he was telling me we were over and then he disappeared. And now I am here and alone and ashamed._

  
Josephine must have told the others because no one else said anything to her, except Sera of course. Sera thought it was hysterical.

  
“I knew it! It’s all just fancy dress. No one knows anything about real Elves.”

  
She stifled her urge to strangle Sera. Mostly with wine, shared with Dorian in his quarters.

  
“You know, this just isn't going to work,” Dorian said. “We all ask you what’s wrong and you tell us to ask Solas. But he's nowhere to be found. Ellana, my friend - whatever the bald idiot has done, you can surely tell me.”

  
She took another drink. “If I knew what he had done, I would.”

  
“Vishante kaffas. You’re as bad as Cole. Just spit it out!”

  
“Dorian - I need to see him again. If - if I say it before then it becomes real.”

  
The Altus’s face softened. “Ah. Well. As long as you know I’m here, and more than capable of sending a fireball his way when he arrives.”

  
The entire Inquisition felt like it was in a weird sort of stasis. The majority of their forces were still making their long trip back from the Arbor Wilds. They were working with draconologists to figure out what to do about the archdemon. They were tapping every last one of Leliana’s resources to determine where Corypheus was, exactly. But nothing was - happening.

  
And Solas still wasn’t back.

  
Ellana stayed in the keep for the most part, playing and replaying a hundred moments from the last year in her mind. Had it truly been a year? No, what felt stranger was the thought that there had been 26 years before this one. Had she ever really wandered with the aravels, taken quiet steps through shadowed forests hunting nothing more than halla and wolves and the occasional bear? Had she ever stood blushing, making vows to Sylaise, nervously touching her new mate? Had she ever lain beside him, wondering if this was love, if she was with child? Had her parents ever directed her to look up at the stars and shared the stories they told?

  
Why did her own life feel less real now? Why couldn’t she bear the sight of her own face?

  
One day, she kept entirely to her quarters, asking for her food to be sent up. She sat on the balcony and tried - tried tried tried - not to recall his words.

  
_What were you like - before the Anchor?_

  
Her answer was different now. _I was less real. Less alive. Because I did not have you._

What a stupid, stupid thing to feel. As if the love of one person should make or break who she was. But she couldn't stop feeling it.

  
There was a knock on the door the next morning, louder and more insistent than a servant’s. When she opened the door, it was Cassandra.

  
“Are you ill?” She asked.

  
“No,” Ellana replied. _Yes._

  
“Good. Then you will come downstairs for breakfast. Let’s go.”

  
Ellana usually dressed fully for breakfast, but something told her that Cassandra would not wait. She threw a robe on over her leggings and tunic instead.

  
“She arises!” Dorian called when she entered the hall.

  
“There is coffee for you,” Josephine offered. There were also letters in front of her, and though her hand rested lightly on them, she did not push them forward.

  
“And cookies,” Sera mumbled when she sat down. She pushed them over to Ellana. Blackwall coughed and glared at her. Then the other elf stuck out her tongue and then said: “And I’m sorry I laughed at your elfy-dealies being gone.”

  
“Truly, darling, you are so much lovelier without them. One focuses more on your bone structure and lovely eyes without all that black ink,” Vivienne added.

  
“Will everyone stop crowding her and let her eat?” Varric said. “I thought we were playing it cool. This is not playing it cool.”

  
“We’re always cool,” Cole said. “It is very cold here. I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about her pain. Or Solas.”

  
Ellana took a breath through her nose.

  
“Nice going, kid,” Varric sighed. Cole looked at Ellana, eyes narrowing.

  
“The name is like a knife - twisting, stabbing, seeking, but she doesn’t want anyone to pull the knife out. She wants it - she wants him - further in,” the spirit said.

  
“Ugh - so I had to apologize, but no one is going to tell that thing to knock it off?” Sera asked. “Also, who did I bet that they were boning? That’s definitely what it meant about wanting him further in.”

  
“I’m leaving,” Vivienne sighed. “Ellana, if you want time away from these fools, you know where I am.”

  
“Maker preserve us - this is not what we discussed,” Cassandra groaned.

  
“I told you to just leave her alone,” Bull grumbled.

  
Discussed? Ellana pictured it now. Her alone in her room all day, and the lot of them downstairs, unsure what to do. An entire war raging on around them, a hundred other things to worry about, and they sat down and talked about what to do about her heartbreak. The thought was suddenly hilarious, and she began to laugh, her shoulders shaking.

  
“My friends,” she said. “Thank you.”

  
They all relaxed a little at that.

  
“Ellana,” Cassandra said. It was rare the Seeker used her first name. “We just - ”

Ellana held up a hand. “It’s fine. Well - it’s not fine. But we do not need to talk about it.”

  
Josephine winced slightly and pushed forward a letter. “Leliana did ask me to give you this. It’s from Solas. Everything is fine! He’ll be back soon.”

  
It was a short note, addressed to Sister Nightingale. He apologized for his lateness in returning to Skyhold, saying he had found evidence of where Crestwood’s mayor was hiding and had worked with her agents to find him. He would return - along with the mayor - shortly.

  
So - he hadn’t left for good.

  
“Thank you for passing this along, Josephine. I am sure there are others…?”

  
“Yes!” She shoved the rest of them forward.

  
For a time, Ellana managed to lose herself entirely in responding to the letters. She didn’t even wish for his help. Not once. In fact, she was so lost in responding to them and not thinking of Solas that the knock on her door startled her. Was he back already? No - it was two of their soldiers.

  
“Pardon us, your holiness,” the first one said. “We hope we aren’t intruding.”

  
“I would not have opened the door if you were,” she said, smiling. She always tried to remember Varric’s words after their first game of Wicked Grace - it was too easy for her to become a symbol and cease to be a flesh and blood person. She needed to walk both lines. “What can I help you with?”

  
“Well, um, you see - your worship - I mean, your holiness - we wanted to invite you to a wedding.”

  
“A wedding?”

  
“My wedding, actually,” the second soldier said. “It’s tomorrow night. We met here in Skyhold and, well, with a final battle approaching and all - we just wanted to say our vows before then. And - we would be so honored if you would attend.”

  
“I’d be delighted,” Ellana said. “I’ve never been to a human wedding before. Anything I should know?”

  
“Well - uh - there’s dancing?”

  
She couldn’t help but chuckle. They were both about the burst with excitement and nerves. It was probably best to just let them go.

  
“Thank you very much for the invitation. I’ll be there tomorrow.”

  
That night she thought back to her Bonding with Mahanon. How she lay under the stars by the aravels, terrified and elated and wondering how badly her wedding night would hurt. How her biggest fear was that she wouldn’t be able to give the clan children - that she would struggle as her mother had with conception and pregnancy. How she would have to give up hunting for a time if she did have a child, and how much she would hate that. Life was truly that simple once. But would she go back to it if she had the chance? She didn’t find the answer before drifting off to sleep and dreaming of the glen in Crestwood, so silent it deafened her, the breach in the sky above her.

  
The wedding took up a good deal of everyone’s attention the next day. As word spread, more and more of Skyhold became involved - and, of course, since that included Josephine, it was turning into quite a party. By late afternoon the majority of the people staying with them had crowded into the garden and onto the surrounding battlements to watch as Mother Giselle lead the ceremony. Ellana watched them, so alight with love and fear and hope, and allowed herself the forbidden thought she’d tried to ignore - herself in the garden, in the bride’s place, and him at her side.

 

****  
A toast to the groom  
To the bride  
From your sister  
Who’s always by your side

 

To your union  
And the hope that you provide  
May you always be satisfied  
****

 

She almost didn’t go to the reception. But it would have been so quiet in her quarters - so quiet that thoughts would take root and grow where they should not. And Dorian and Cassandra and Bull and Blackwall kept sneaking glances at her, checking to make sure she was enjoying herself. Someone would follow her if she left, of that she had no doubt. And besides - she could enjoy herself, right? She would enjoy herself. He was coming back. He would talk to her. They would fix everything.  
Those thoughts plus a bottle of wine from the cellar contributed to her idea to stand on the table and give the toast.

  
“The Inquisition would not be what it was without each and every person in this room,” she said. “And I am pleased to find out it’s not just good for restoring order and killing demons - ” Lots of cheering and foot stomping at that part. “But apparently for matchmaking as well.” Wolf whistles, now. She could feel how flushed she was but she didn’t care. “There’s a lot in this world that feels uncertain. Frightening. I hope everyone in this room finds someone the way you two have - someone who can be a source of strength in that uncertainty.”

  
And it was after she finished taking another drink from her goblet, amidst the cheering, that Solas appeared in the door.

 

****  
I’ll never forget the first time  
I saw your face  
I have never been the same  
Intelligent eyes in a hunger pang frame  
And when you said hi I forgot my dang name  
Set my heart aflame, every part aflame  
This is not a game  
****

 

Maybe it was the wine or the noise, but suddenly she felt like she was back in the mountains with Cassandra, confused and terrified by the mark on her hand, slogging through demons and snow. Someone was at her side, his hand on her wrist, pointing the Mark at the sky. And when it was closed, she really saw him for the first time. A still, calm point in the maelstrom. Those blue, blue eyes. That voice, assuring her that she was their salvation. For a moment, there was only him. Just like now.

  
He met her gaze but looked swiftly away, then crossed through the crowd to get to the door to the rotunda. She jumped down from the table and followed.

  
“Solas,” she said when she entered. His back was to her. He did not turn, but instead shrugged off his coat and placed it carefully on the chair. “I want to talk about what happened.”

  
“That would not be appropriate at this time. We must focus on what truly matters.” He looked up now and met her eyes. How was he keeping his voice so calm, so detached? “Harden your heart to a cutting edge, and put that pain to good use against Corypheus.”

  
Harden it? Everything inside her felt soft, dizzy, weak. This was really happening. The goblet slipped out of her hand, the sound of it striking the stone floor startling her and the crows far above her.

  
“It would help me if you could explain why,” she said, and there was a little steel in her voice now.

  
“It would only lead to more questions. The blame is mine, not yours. It was selfish and irresponsible of me. Let that be enough.”

  
Let _that_ be enough? She was crossing the floor towards him now. He looked down.

  
“You really don’t let anyone see beneath that polite mask you wear, do you?”

  
“You saw more than most.”

  
And it was the quiet pain in his voice that broke her, that melted all that steel down again and made her take his face in her hands and kiss him, knowing he was going to push her away.

  
“No,” he said, taking careful hold of her wrists. “Please.”

  
“Then tell me why! We could be leaving to fight Corypheus any day now. A fight I very well may not come back from. If I’m going to die I at least deserve to know why you don’t love me.”

  
He breathed in so quickly it was more of a hiss and then he was on her, hands digging into her hips, mouth against hers. He pushed her back so she was sitting on the desk and he was leaning over her, one hand already under her shirt, palming her stomach, and just the feeling of his skin on hers made her whimper and pull down on the jawbone pendant, its teeth practically cutting into her. She needed him closer closer closer. He was nearly lying on top of her now, between her legs, where he belonged. Where he would always belong. But then he pulled back and turned away.

  
“ _Ar lasa mala revas. You are free, you are so beautiful._ ” Cole? Dizzy with wine and desire, Ellana half-heartedly tried to see where he was. “But then you turned away. Why?”

  
Solas’s shoulders slumped. He ran a hand over his face, trying to regain his composure. “I had no other choice.”

  
Cole appeared from the shadows of the doorway now. “She is bare-faced, embarrassed, and she doesn’t know. She thinks it’s why you walked away.”

  
“You cannot heal this Cole. Please - let it go.”

  
So much pain in his voice again. She sat up, wanted to reach out to him. But he was the one who told her to harden her heart.

  
“Perhaps Cole can get a better answer from you than I did,” she said.

  
Cole darted forward, speaking more quickly now, like he was running out of time. “He hurts, an old pain from before, when everything sang the same. You’re real, and it means everyone could be real. It changes everything, but it can’t.” She wished she wasn’t so drunk. She wished her head wasn’t reeling. She needed to know what he meant. “They sleep, masked in a mirror, hiding, hurting, and to wake them...”

  
Solas tensed suddenly, his hands clenching to fists. Cole froze, gasped. “Where did it go?” He asked mournfully.

“I apologize, Cole. That is not a pain you can heal.”

  
Cole bowed his head, and vanished. Ellana sat up on the desk. Her lips still felt swollen, she could still feel her pulse between her legs where she longed for him. And he was still as a stone before her. Still, because he was holding everything back.

  
_He hurts. And if I push him again, I will hurt him more._

  
“When this is over,” she said. “If we survive - will you tell me then?”

  
Something in his posture softened. He turned so she could see him in profile.

  
“If we both survive, yes. I will tell you.”

  
Ellana closed her eyes for a moment. You’re real, and it means everyone could be real. She didn’t feel very real now. She felt - hollow. Drifting. Like she could disappear into the Fade at a moment’s notice.

  
“You should go back to your party,” he said quietly. “They will miss you.”

  
She walked back to the main hall in a daze. Well, there was still hope. After all this was over. He would tell her, and everything would be okay. _When everything sang the same._ She turned the words over and over in her mind like precious stones. They would sing the same again someday. Solas and her. But as the crowds around her whooped and hollered at the newly married couple as they left the party, she felt the blood in her veins slowly turning to lead.

  
_No we won’t._

 

****  
And I know she’ll be happy as his bride  
And I know he will never be satisfied  
I will never be satisfied  
****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those feels though. Up next: "History Has Its Eyes on You" and the end of Inquisition!


	9. History Has Its Eyes On You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, I have poked and prodded at chapters 7, 8, and 9 for so long that I've decided it's just time to let them go. I have so many other things for this pairing that I am more excited to work on, from the last 2 chapters of this fic to the sequel fic I am nearly done with. I promise those are coming soon and will be much better!

They were still waiting.

  
Ellana threw herself into practice for their final battle, waking early every day to shoot at targets and practice maneuvers. She scoured maps endlessly for any sign of Corypheus’s lair. She grilled Cullen for information on their forces, on potential strategies against the red Templars and the archdemon alike. And, of course, there was her journey with Morrigan. Meeting Flemeth. And Mythal.

  
When they returned from that journey, Ellana spent so long at target practice that her arms were shaky. She’d never been very religious, but she did believe Keeper Deshanna’s tales of the gods. That they were locked away, unable to help their people. It explained a lot about the state of the world. And yet here was Mythal, wandering in the body of a witch of the wilds. Not helping them. And there was Abelas, saying that the elves brought doom on themselves. And there were thousands of people looking to her as the Herald of Andraste, a god (was she even a god? Ellana forgot sometimes) she had certainly never believed in, and now the space where her own small belief lived was empty and hollow and she still had to lead all of them.

  
She fired one last angry arrow, drawing back as far as she could, hoping the thud it made would drown out her thoughts. It didn’t. Dread Wolf take them, then. Was Fen’Harel real, then? Was he wandering around Thedas like Mythal, neither helping nor hurting her people - just ignoring them?

  
“Inquisitor.” It was Cassandra, sidling up behind her. “Have those dummies done something to personally offend you?”

  
Ellana snorted. “No. I just need to be ready.” She walked toward the dummies now to begin retrieving the arrows.

  
“I have no doubt that you are,” Cassandra said. “I have no doubt that if anyone can lead us to victory in this, it’s you.”

  
One of the arrows had gone in particularly far. It took a good deal of force to pry it free. Ellana grunted.

  
“I wish I was as confident as you. I want more time to practice and I wish Corypheus would just show up now. I want our forces to return so that I’ll have help and I want them to stay far away so nothing happens to them.” The arrows were free now. She looked into the dummy’s empty eyes, rather than at her friend. “I just wish I knew what was coming.”

  
“None but the Maker knows. And there is freedom in knowing that, Ellana. Corypheus can’t control what comes next any more than you can.”

  
Ellana nodded. She did not share the Seeker’s faith, and they had quarreled over that fact many times before, but the words still gave her a certain comfort. She knew the spirit in which they were intended. “Thank you, Cassandra.”

  
“Thank you,” Cassandra said softly. “For all that you have done. For all that you will do.”

  
The others assured her in much the same way - with prayers, with thanks, with assurances of her strength and wisdom and all the other things she could hardly believe they saw in her. She did not go to Solas, though. Her longing for him was just now settling into a dull ache. Every time they passed each other in the hall it reopened a little. Another thing she had no control over.

 

****  
Let me tell you what I wish I’d known  
When I was young and dreamed of glory  
You have no control  
Who lives, who dies, who tells your story  
****

 

They were in the war room when the Breach tore open again, an angry green gash in the sky, and then there was no more waiting.

  
Ellana barely remembered going up to her quarters and putting on her armor and gathering her supplies. Her blood was singing with adrenaline, her pulse ringing in her ears. It made her think of the first hunt she led. Everything drained away except for the chase. By the time she came down most of her companions were ready to leave too. They stood there looking at her in anticipation as she stood by her throne and her heart clenched. She couldn’t think of any others she would rather have by her side as she went out there to face Corypheus. She couldn’t think of any others whose safety she would fear more for.

  
It was as that thought crossed her mind that she saw Solas wasn’t among them. Then the door to the rotunda opened and he stood there, dressed for travel, but looking hesitant. She’d taken him with her on a few trips since he returned from Crestwood, but not all of them. She met his gaze and nodded, and he joined the rest of their companions.

  
“Let’s go,” Ellana said, knowing that there was probably some sort of big speech she was supposed to give, but there was still no space for words in her now. It was time to end this. And as they walked out of the keep to the sound of prayers and songs and well wishes, and she saw Solas ahead of her, his words rang in her ears.

  
_If we both survive, I will tell you._

  
It was one more reason to stay alive, to give this her all. She felt everyone’s eyes on them as they left and so she closed her own. She had no control. But she had all of their faith, all of their hope. She would wear it like a shield. She would do this, because there was no one else who could.

  
It was a short, nearly silent journey to the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Dorian quipped about being too young and pretty to die for about the hundredth time as they drew closer. Varric muttered something under his breath that she was fairly certain was a prayer to Andraste. Cassandra joined in. Sera uttered every curse word she knew against Corypheus, with Blackwall adding suggestions. Vivienne glided silently through the snow, as if they were on their way to a party and not a potential massacre. Bull was strangely quiet, standing nearer to Dorian than he usually did. Cole talked about light and shadow, fear and hope. Morrigan peeled away from them at some point, off to do whatever it was the Well and her mother instructed her in.

  
At one point Ellana fell back, wanting to watch all of them as they walked ahead of her, committing their voices and faces and movements to memory. This was why she would fight. This was where everything led. Whether she was ready or not didn’t matter anymore.

  
“You are ready for this.”

  
She hadn’t even noticed Solas falling into step beside her. She glanced at him and then away. Looking at him lately was like looking at the sun. His face was the one thing she wanted to see and the one thing she feared to see. She didn’t respond - they were nearly at the temple now. There was shouting up ahead. He took her hand and gave it one hard squeeze.

  
“After?” She asked, returning the pressure, still not daring to look at him.

  
“After.”

  
Then they were charging forward, and Corypheus was upon them.

 

****  
I know that we can win  
I know that greatness lies in you  
Just remember from here on in  
History has its eyes on you  
****

 

When the world fell away, it was just Ellana and Dorian and Bull and Solas who were carried skyward. Who darted through the ruins, ignoring Corypheus’s taunts. Who wove a song of steel and arrow and lightning and ice around them, as if they were all one being and not four separate ones. That was their strength, after all. Corypheus came to this final fight alone.

  
Well. Not entirely alone. There was the matter of the dragon.

  
“That’s the best you’ve got?” Bull crowed when it landed.

  
Even the dragon was no match for them, and now Corypheus really was alone, and they weren’t. And it was that feeling that surged forward in Ellana, that burst out of the Anchor and snatched the orb away from him, that banished him, that tore the orb asunder and brought everything crashing back down to earth. She was not alone.

  
It took a moment in the chaos afterwards to find anyone else, but the feeling didn’t diminish. It was Solas she found first, and as always it was like a cord inside her tightened at the sight of him. He was kneeling, cradling something.

“The orb,” he said.

 

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you wanted it saved.”

  
“It is not your fault.” She couldn’t believe how broken he sounded. She wanted to step forward and touch him, to remind him of his promise. But he stood up first and looked at her, and she felt the cord tighten again.

  
“There’s more - isn’t there?” The question she had never really dared to ask. The darkness in him she’d brushed up against but never grasped. But she was not alone, he was not alone - they could do this.

  
“Whatever else happens,” he said. “I want you to know that what we had was real.”

  
“Inquisitor? Are you alive?”

  
Somehow, it didn’t occur to her that he meant to break his promise. She didn’t wait for him to follow her. She turned to find Cassandra and the rest of them and her heart lightened. Of course Solas was following. She even turned back and saw him standing on the stairs behind her. This was After. This was when it all resolved, when all the knots untied.

  
But then she turned back again, and he was gone.

  
They all asked about it, of course, fearing he had died in the battle. All she could do was shake her head. They camped in the mountains for one night, exhausted from their ordeal, and as she dreamed she heard his voice over and over again:

  
_Whatever else happens, I want you to know what we had was real._

  
Had.

  
“He could come back any moment,” Leliana said to her when they arrived back at Skyhold.

  
“Maybe,” she said.

  
She mingled at the party and assured each and every one of her inner circle that she could not have done it without them. She smiled and meant it - even enjoyed herself. They won! And they would all stay with her, at least for now. She was not alone. This was only the beginning, as Leliana reminded her. She went up to her balcony and looked out over the snow and sunlight and took a breath and smiled. What they had was real. And this was only the beginning.

 

****  
History has its eyes on you  
****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: Trespasser, paired with the song "Burn."


	10. Burn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, "Burn." Possibly the most cathartic "Hamilton" song to sing at the top of your lungs in the car. There were so many lines I wanted to use from it in this chapter! I will highlight some of the ones I left out at the end.
> 
> Also, I can't believe Ellana snuck unplanned (solo) smut into this on me. What a goof.

The Anchor was getting worse.

  
It was one of the things Ellana couldn’t deny, anymore than she could deny how funny Cassandra looked in the full regalia of the Divine or how disgruntled Cullen was by the Orlesian marriage proposals or how she was searching every face in the crowd for Solas’s.

  
Of course, it’s not like it was ever a particularly pleasing sensation. But it flared up sometimes now, without her control, making her arm hurt all the way back to her elbow, like it was burning from the inside.

  
And the one person who could tell her what was wrong was the one person who didn’t show up for this damned council.

  
“How have you been, darling?” Vivienne asked. “I know you were cruelly disappointed when Solas left.”

  
“I’ve been meaning to ask,” Blackwall - Thom - said. “Where’s Solas?”

  
“You were hoping for word on Solas?” Leliana asked. “I’m sorry, but we have found nothing.”

  
“I swear, if Sera has put a sign on my back that says ‘ask Ellana about Solas,’ I’m going to hit something,” Ellana said finally, after Dorian asked. She flinched immediately, knowing the words came out harsher than she meant them.

  
“I didn’t!” Sera grumbled. “Thought about it, though. Loosen up a little.”

  
Ellana sighed. Sera was right. She was tense. Unbelievably tense, for someone who hadn’t seen a rift or a dragon or a crazed magister-god-demon in two years. She didn’t remember the last time she’d fully relaxed her left arm. She didn’t know what she’d do if they disbanded the Inquisition. She told Keeper Deshanna her duties kept her too busy to write much, but said nothing of her missing vallaslin. She hoped no rumors of it had spread. Humans didn’t question it much, but the elves who saw her did. How was it gone? More importantly, why?

  
If they disbanded the Inquisition, she could not go back to them barefaced. She could not tell them that one of their dearest rites was a sham. And at night, when she couldn’t hide from anything anymore, not even herself - she admitted that she couldn’t go back to being a hunter ignorant of the world. Powerless. Alone even when surrounded by aravels and song.

  
Why wasn’t Solas here?

  
She’d tried not to think about him over the last two years, although it was a bit like trying not to think about rain when it was raining. Leliana said he couldn’t be found, and so he couldn’t be. She was angry at him for leaving, and then sad that he’d gone in such pain. But she never once doubted that he’d be back, especially once the Exalted Council was called. Whatever darkness there was in him - whatever his inscrutable grief at the destruction of the orb - he would return.

  
It even felt like he was there.

  
Maybe it was just being in the Winter Palace. When she followed the trail of blood up the trellis and into the hall above, she’d lingered there a moment. The image of him lounging there, smiling at her, wishing her good hunting, was so real it was like she’d gone back in time.

  
“My lady,” Blackwall said delicately when she stared at the spot for too long. “The trail?”

And, of course, what did they find at the end of it?

  
An eluvian.

  
And what did they find on the other side?

  
The Crossroads, in all their impossible beauty. The soul-deep _rightness_  of them. She’d always regretted that Solas had not gotten the chance to go through the eluvian when she went with Morrigan. Now, here she was without him again.

  
“I’d forgotten all the colors,” she said softly, and though Bull, Dorian, and Blackwall undoubtedly assumed it was directed at them, she was picturing Solas in her mind’s eye. How they’d been entwined on his bed when she told him of her experience with Morrigan, his fingertips skimming along her neck and shoulders and ears, soft, soothing, familiar touches.

  
_Why aren't you here?_

  
They found books that spoke through impression and not words and she longed to see the look of rapture that would have stolen over his face if he’d been there to see them. They found ruins that were lovely in their rugged remoteness and she remembered his love of Skyhold. They found spirits and she longed for his command of Elvhen. And when the spirits would not listen to her stumbling words - when they attacked -

  
“Dorian! Barrier!” She ground out as she felt the breath-stealing impact of another arrow. Armor didn’t protect you from everything.

  
“Working on it!” He snapped as another lightning cage trapped the berserk warrior spirit threatening Bull and Blackwall.

  
Dorian was an accomplished mage, a worthy fighter - one of her best friends. Bull and Blackwall shed blood to protect her as she leapt, shot, dove, poisoned her foes. But fighting was never the same without the swirl of his staff, the chill of his ice, the familiar comfort of his barriers and spirits. He used to call on the Fade to line up enemies for her to take down in a single long shot.

 

And yet he left, without a word of explanation or good-bye.

  
She lost the thread of her thoughts that was connected to him in the fury of fighting the Qunari. The ground around them was littered with the shattered bottles of healing potions and grenades. She couldn’t hide the way her hands were shaking. Bull had a hand on Dorian’s waist, holding his kadan to him in a gesture of support and fear alike. Her chest ached along with the rest of her at the sight.

  
“These murals - they’re almost familiar,” Blackwall commented as they paced around the ruin, trying to figure out where to go now that they’d reached a chamber with a large statue of Fen’Harel. “They look like the ones in Skyhold.”

  
Ellana took them in for the first time. A man - Fen’Harel? That didn’t make sense - removing vallaslin. Just like that, she could smell the wet grass and the warm air and his skin. Just like that, she was in Crestwood.

  
“Solas said they were slave markings.” Her voice was more terse than she would have liked. She left out the obvious part - that he told her when he took her own.

  
By the time they fought their way through more Qunari and through rumors of agents of Fen’Harel, through artifacts that sang to the Anchor so loudly it hurt in her bones, her skin felt too tight for her body. They went back into the Winter Palace and as quickly as she could, she excused herself to her room so she could sit on the floor, close her eyes, and just give in to the ache of missing him. It was the only thing that could silence everything else.

  
When she finally rose, she went to her pack and pulled out the small leather case she buried there. In it were the few precious mementos she had of him. Because she was rarely apart from him in the year the Inquisition spent fighting Corypheus, Solas never had a reason to write her love letters. But every now and then he would leave her a book, or a sketch, or a bundle of herbs. His accompanying notes never said much - _for you_  or _I thought of you_  or, her favorite, _ma haurasha_ , accompanying a jar of honey - but coming from a man who wrote so little, they meant the world. Even more prized were the three sketches he gave her - one of Skyhold, one of ruins in the Emerald Graves, themselves two small, indistinct figures in their shadow, and then the most treasured one, an incredibly detailed one of her left hand, complete with the Anchor. All three were titled ‘home,’ in his strange, ornate handwriting.

And even if he did not write her many letters, there were all the things he'd said - though he was quiet when around the others, and often shared her company in pleasant silence, when he did speak it was in a flood of words, lyrical and lovely, each of them etched in her memory even if she no longer had physical proof of them.

  
She traced the words on each memento in turn, trying again to drown out the screams of the Qunari warriors, the terror of the ghostly sentinels, the revelations of the Evanuris. The memories couldn’t bring her peace now, though. The Anchor flared in her arm and she hissed, trying to will it to calm. Its will fought back against hers. It was as tangible as a blade or an arrow or a dagger. She was no longer in control. She was burning up. And he was not here.

  
He was not here because he chose not to be.

  
Ellana lay on her bed in vain that night, trying to conjure up the sound of Solas’s laugh, or the way he whispered her name, or the taste of his lips, or the way his hand felt in hers. Anything that would bring her back to a time when he was hers. When she fell asleep at last she dreamed of the glen in Crestwood, and him. His back was turned, but she could not speak. She knew what she wanted to say: _come back, love. Be mine again._  She couldn’t see his face, but she could hear him:

  
_In another world._

 

****  
You and your words flooded my senses  
Your sentences left me defenseless  
You built me palaces out of paragraphs  
You built cathedrals

 

I’m rereading the letters you wrote me  
I’m searching and scanning for answers in every line  
For some kind of sign of when you were mine  
And when you were mine  
The world seemed to burn  
****

 

Ellana knew she was dying when they reached Vir Dirthara.

  
She tried to tell herself that it was only the horror in the memories the spirit shared with them. But every time the Anchor flared, every time she discharged it and felt the raw power rock through her and saw what it did to their enemies, she knew. She was going to die, and leave her friends to fend off the Qunari and these agents of Fen’Harel alone. She was going to die, and she was never going to see Solas again.

  
The longing was as constant now as the burn of the Anchor. Everything they saw reminded her of him. It almost seemed like he was there - in the fractured beauty of the library, in the voice of the spirits, in the weapons and armor they clothed themselves in, in the traces of power left behind by the mage threatening the Qunari plan.

  
Something was sitting heavy in her stomach. A weight she didn’t dare question. No time for that. Only time for the next puzzle, the next bone-crushing fight, the next flare of the Anchor.

  
_I have no time. I'm running out of time._

  
Death was not a stranger to Ellana. She’d imagined it so many times it may as well have been a memory. But this? Burning up from the inside? Killed not by an enemy but by the Anchor, the very thing she had come to regard as a gift that helped her protect people?

  
_My time is up._

  
It was the thought that rang through her mind when Cullen, Josephine, and Leliana argued. She tried and tried and tried to hold back the pain but the thought kept ringing in her ears.

  
“Do you know what this has cost us with Orlais and Ferelden? They are planning to dismantle us as we speak.”

  
The Anchor flared, so hard she cried out and tasted blood in her mouth from where she’d been biting her cheek. Oh, _then_  they noticed. _Then_  they stopped arguing and stepped from around the table, wide-eyed.

  
_I am going to die and leave them with this mess._

  
“Shit! Damn it! We save Ferelden, and they’re angry! We save Orlais, and they’re angry! We close the Breach _twice_ , and my own hand wants to kill me. Could one thing in this fucking world stay fixed? I need to get to the Darvaarad. You all can fight amongst yourselves once I’m - ”

  
Just like always, guilt rushed in after she lost control of her temper, seeing the worry on their faces. She knew now that she was going to die. They didn’t. Couldn’t. As always, she was more than just herself. She was a symbol. And she needed to stay that way, even when it felt like her bones were on fire and there was nothing in her chest but emptiness.

  
“Once I’m back.”

  
They kept staring at her, tense, and for an instant Leliana reached out her hand, almost like she wanted to take hold of Ellana. She’d never wanted more to just sink into someone’s arms, but she took a breath and shook her head. If she let someone hold her now, she might break entirely. And there was work to be done for the three of them, work that did not involve standing here worrying about her.

  
She knew she needed a rest before they pressed on, but on her way to her quarters the feeling of being alone started to weigh heavier and heavier on her. She went to Dorian’s door, but before she could knock, she heard it - the sound of the bed creaking, the muffled cries, of two people taking comfort in each other before they had to face death again. She blushed to the tips of her ears, from foolishness rather than embarrassment. Of course he and Bull would take this time together, knowing they would be called on to come with her. What would she be doing now, if Solas was here?

  
When she went back to her bed and laid there, she imagined it. She imagined how Solas would be sitting at the desk in her room, pouring over tome after tome taken from all the places they’d been, sketching, annotating, researching, determined to find a way to contain the Anchor.

  
_Come to bed, vhenan,_ she would say.

  
_I can’t, he’d reply. Not until I know what we need to do. Not until I can fix this. Not until I can save you._

  
The Anchor started to flare again and she winced, but that was part of this fantasy, too: he’d hear her hushed cry of pain and be at her side in instants, hand brushing over her face and then taking her left hand, matching his own will with hers in calming it.

  
_Emma lath,_ he’d say. _I will not lose you like this._

  
He would kiss her, those consuming kisses like their first one in the Fade, cool her body with magic, tell her she was beautiful, that she could do this, that she did not have to do it alone. Ellana shuddered at the thought of his lips on her arms, her hands, her ribs, her breasts - at the thought of his voice low and warm in her ear - at the patterns of energy he would draw on her skin as he calmed her, and then reached down to where she was already wet. Her own fingers would do for now as they traced the path he’d taken before. She groaned at the first brush of them against the bundle of nerves that was growing already as she imagined him holding her, chest to chest as they sat up on the bed, the better to kiss each other, the better for him to keep whispering in her ear.

  
_You are never alone,_ he’d say as he slid himself inside her and let her just rock against him. _My heart, I will stand at your side until the mountains come down._

  
She rubbed herself against her fingers and it was enough, just enough to make her gasp, to push her one step closer towards release. The same way he would if he was here - he would reach between them and stroke her where she ached, twitch inside of her when she groaned and ground her hips down on the very root of him. He would take hold of her hips eventually, when he knew she was close, and help her thrust down onto him, again and again, until his voice was ragged and he was biting his lip.

 

 _I’m close,_ he’d tell her. _Come with me._

  
She slid her fingers inside herself then, pumped them in and out, her palm still rubbing against that sweet, small, swollen spot, until she came at the exact moment she imagined them clutching each other and coming, breathless and together and weak with relief.

  
_Ar lath ma,_ he’d say.

  
Only the weak arc of green light from the Anchor ruined her relaxation as she lay there, still feeling the last pulses of her climax grip her fingers. No matter what she pictured behind closed eyelids, she was still dying. He was still gone. He would never say those things. And if she was going to die, it was time to accept that.

  
She sat up in bed. Cleaned off her hand. Relaced her breeches. Went to the desk and lit a candle. Took out the little box at the bottom of her bag. And began burning the notes. Maybe it would have been more Dalish to bury them, but as the words curled and twisted and turned to ash she saw the release of Andrastian cremations. The finality. The words were gone. She was clear, clean, empty.

  
She started on the sketches next but they took longer, and by the time she got to the sketch of her hand and traced the word ‘home’ in the bottom corner - she hesitated. One piece of the past, folded and tucked carefully against her skin - that would not be such a bad thing to die with.

  
She slept fitfully, not really dreaming so much as hoping. Maybe this was the night. Maybe what she had burnt were offerings that would draw him to her dreams with explanations.

 

All she got was smoke.

 

****  
I’m erasing myself from the narrative  
Let future historians wonder how I  
Reacted when you broke my heart  
You have torn it all apart  
I am watching it burn  
Watching it burn  
****

 

Then, of course, they went through the Eluvian again, and her mind was swimming as the Anchor built power again and again and again. She thought she could hear his voice sometimes when it did. Maybe he was with her after all. And then the Viddasala spoke his name.

  
“That’s why he left,” she said. “He was trying to stop them all along!”

  
When she turned to face Bull and Blackwall and Dorian, all she saw on their faces was despair.

  
“Ellana - the painting in the Darvaarad research tower. Did you see the bottom part? The one where it said it was a self-portrait?”

  
But she was already going through the Eluvian after the Viddasala. He was close. He was only trying to protect them all this time. She could push away the heavy weight in her stomach, the dread growing deep within her. Then the Anchor surged, so hard she barely had time to shout at them to get back, and her whole world was on fire.

  
_I’m running out of time._

  
She carried the weight with her through those final, frantic battles. It was the only thing keeping her on the ground when she used the Anchor. She was pretty sure she would just float away otherwise. Dissipate straight into the Fade. Maybe she would become a spirit. That would be nice. She could help people, like Cole. First she would help Solas, though. First she would leap through the Eluvian and find him and help him and stop this madness, and then she could die.

  
She was dizzied from going through the Eluvian, and then the stone Qunari appeared before her, and for an instant she thought she’d died already, or at least entered some kind of nightmare realm. And then she heard it.

  
“Ebasit-kata. Itwa ost.”

  
And like an arrow loosed from a bow, she ran towards the sound of his voice. It didn’t matter what she burned the night before. She couldn’t burn away him. What a terrible, lovely thing.

  
“Maraas kata!” The Viddasala - no - she had to get there first -

  
He didn't see her. Creators, what was he wearing? Armor that gleamed like the sun, a pelt over his shoulder. No humble apostate. He was - regal. It didn’t even seem like him.

  
“Your forces have failed. Leave now, and tell the Qunari to trouble me no further.”

  
His back was turned when she saw him. Creators, what was he wearing? Armor that gleamed like the sun, a pelt over his shoulder. No humble apostate. He was - regal. It didn’t even seem like him. But she had heard him speak and it was him, the same voice she'd heard in battle, in council, in laughter, in sadness, in love. He was walking away - no! - and the Viddasala was preparing to attack. In the instant she reached for her bow, the angry Qunari became stone. He hadn’t even moved but she knew it was him. And then - she knew. Not in a way she could articulate. In fact, all she could manage was his name.

  
“Solas.”

  
For the first time in two years, she said the name, and he responded. He turned and his face softened - which was of course when the Anchor began sparking, so hard it brought her to her knees and tears to her eyes. Well. If this was it - if it had to be now - at least he was here.

  
But of course he had the answer. Of course his magic could span the distance between them and silence the Anchor with a single touch, like a parent soothing a child. Of course he smiled at her sadly and said:

  
“That should give us more time. I am sure you have questions.”

  
Questions? She could hardly breathe at the sight of him. But she forced it out nonetheless.

  
“The Qunari believe you are an agent for someone taking the name Fen’Harel.”

  
“The Qunari reject myth and legend. If you told them of your meeting with Mythal, they would attribute it to a demon. I am no one's agent but my own. I fear the truth is much simpler, and much worse.”

  
And slowly, surely, sickeningly, the weight in her stomach, the one she hadn’t even named, rose into her throat.

  
“You’re Fen’Harel.”

  
“I was Solas first. Fen’Harel came later... an insult I took as a badge of pride. The Dread Wolf inspired hope in my friends and fear in my enemies - not unlike Inquisitor, I suppose.” His voice changed then, grew softer and sadder. “And now you know. What is the old Dalish curse? May the Dread Wolf take you.”

  
With the weight gone, she again felt so light that she might just float away into the Fade. This was it. The darkness she'd brushed up against so many times. What Cole had tried to warn her of. This was it. Distantly she knew she wanted to scream, but she didn’t have the energy to. But she had to say something. He was standing there, looking at her - actually, almost unable to look at her, he was so broken.

  
“And so he did,” she said softly, wishing she could regret that she was now one of the foolish maidens in Keeper Deshanna’s stories.

  
“I did not,” he said, insistently. “I would not lay with you under false pretenses. I was Solas first, and every time I was with you - I was Solas again. No more and no less. You gave that back to me, vhenan.”

  
Now she was aware of the impulse to laugh - loudly, hysterically, until she choked. Was she really standing here, believing this? Believing that he was Fen’Harel, and likewise believing it when he said he’d truly loved her? Maybe it was the numbing effect of whatever he’d done to silence the Anchor.

  
“But you lied to me. I loved you. Did you really think I wouldn't understand?”

  
There was a little heat in her voice after all. It made his voice small again.

  
“Ir abelas, vhenan.”

  
“Tel’abelas. If you loved me, tell me the truth.”

  
And he told her everything. About the Veil, the Evanuris, his war. It would have been ludicrous if it wasn't for the pain in his voice, his eyes - if it didn't make every little scrap he’d ever told her fall into perfect place like the mosaics she had reassembled on the walls of Skyhold. And then he said it, the thing that hit her so deep it took her breath away.

  
“I will save the Elvhen people, even if it means this world must die.”

  
No. He can’t. He won't. I can make him see.

  
“Let me help you, Solas.” She didn’t have the strength for the rest of the words - let me help you move past this hurt. Let me save you.

  
“I cannot do that to you, vhenan.”

  
“But you would do it to yourself?” She remembered, suddenly, his grave in the Fade. Dying alone. “I cannot bear to think of you alone.”

  
“I walk the din’anshiral. There is only death on this journey. I would not have you see what I become. It is my fight. You should be more concerned about the Inquisition - your Inquisition.”

  
And what would he become? How lost would he become to himself? But there were more questions now, more anger - the million ways it suddenly no longer seemed like her Inquisition, after all. His involvement with Corypheus. His plans for the orb. The plans that, for the first time in days, truly left her feeling cold.

  
“I never thought of you as someone who would do that, Solas.”

  
“Thank you.”

  
And that may have been the most heartbreaking thing he said, so heartbreaking she had to follow it up with a stinging remark, to try and recover the anger that kept fading into numbness. She had to be angry. Not sad. Wasn’t anger the only sane response?

  
“For what it’s worth, thanks for the castle,” she said. He wore the faintest smile.

  
“For what it’s worth, you used it well.”

  
More questions, things she knew she needed to ask - about the Inquisition, the Dragon’s Breath, the Eluvians - but all she could really focus on, all she could really care about, was looking into his eyes.

  
But the numbness was lifting. Her arm was beginning to ache.

  
“There’s still the matter of the Anchor,” she said. “It’s getting worse.”

  
“I know vhenan. And we are running out of time.”

  
The Anchor sparked again, and with it, the sudden, fierce, doomed flare of her love. What was it he’d said when he left her on the battlefield two years ago?

  
“The Mark will eventually kill you. Drawing you here gave me the chance to save you, at least for now.”

  
Whatever else happens, I want you to know that what we had was real.

  
Maybe those words weren’t just for her. Maybe they were for him, too.

  
It was all real. And that meant it was worth saving.

  
“Solas,” she said. “Var lath vir suledin.”

  
He looked at her. Smiled sad and knowing.

  
“I wish it could, vhenan.”

  
No. He couldn't mean that. He couldn’t have given up. It was real. The magic coursed through her veins, ripping her apart piece by piece. She wanted to say more, wanted to remind him - _you used to hold my face in both your hands and look at me like I was the whole world._ All she could do was cry out, and watch his heart break.

  
“My love,” he said, voice hoarse the way it was when he was inside her, when he would spend himself and bury his face and refuse to look her in the eye. He was holding her but she could barely feel it through the pain, through their armor. Maybe she would never feel anything again.

  
Then his lips were on hers, and everything narrowed to that one point of contact. Soft, insistent. Tender. Everything else was fading away. There was nothing but him. She was dying. She had to tell him. This was real, this was worth fighting for. He didn't have to do this.

  
“I will never forget you,” he said, voice still hoarse, like it was a foregone conclusion. Like he would never see her again.

  
Like none of it was worth fighting for after all.

  
No.

  
No no no no -

  
He was walking away and she was still on fire. Dimly, she heard Dorian and Bull and Thom’s voices. She was falling backwards to the ground. She kept her eyes on him until the final instant when he disappeared through the Eluvian. Then she let her eyes close.

  
“Ellana! Ellana, what happened?” Dorian. He was so loud. Didn’t he know it was all over?

  
“Her arm.” Bull now.

  
“Sweet Andraste.” Thom, voice thick. “Can we get her back to the Winter Palace?”

  
Something cool on her face, something pressed against her neck. “She’s burning up. Her pulse is fading. There’s no time.”

  
She opened her eyes and saw the blinding colors of the Crossroads one last time. At least this wasn’t a bad place to die. At least he’d kissed her good-bye. At least she would not live to fight him. At least the last thing she saw was his eyes, blue and sad and burning with the same pain she felt in her chest. The pain that meant it was real. She hoped that flame lived on in his chest forever, burning, as her flame went out.

 

*****  
I hope that you burn  
*****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, I had to rewatch the cutscene to get the dialogue like 6 times and I am feeling very sad. Thanks to everyone who gives me kudos and comments to cheer me up :D
> 
> Lines I wanted to use but couldn't quite fit in:
> 
> "You have married an Icarus / And he has flown too close to the sun" - had to go because of the reference to marriage, but I do love the idea of Solas as an Icarus-like figure who dared too much and paid the price.
> 
> "In clearing your name / You have ruined our lives" - I can completely see Lavellan feeling this way about Solas's decision to pursue his own redemption/the redemption of "his" people instead of staying with her and treasuring the world they have. I just hate leaving lines out of the context of their original stanza and didn't want to pull these ones out randomly.
> 
> Also, shout out to the song "The World Was Wide Enough" and Hamilton's monologue as he dies for giving me many of Ellana's thoughts as she tries to make peace with death! Up next: "Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story" and the conclusion of Trespasser.


	11. Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end of Trespasser, paired fittingly with the final song in “Hamilton!” Unfortunately, this one is tough to use because so many of the lyrics are specific to actual American history, but I promise that if you listen to it, it suits the mood I went for.
> 
> Also, I took advantage of the vagueness of exactly what happens between the Solas cutscene and Ellana showing up at the Exalted Council to insert my own interpretation.
> 
> If you enjoy Dorian’s POV in this chapter, I just posted a one-shot titled “Domestic Life” that is also from his POV and features his thoughts on his relationship with Bull and on Ellana’s with Solas post-Trespasser. I really enjoyed writing it, but I didn’t feel it connected closely enough to a “Hamilton” song to be part of this fic!

Dorian Pavus was not a man with many friends. He was entirely too paranoid for such a thing. Ellana Lavellan had snuck up on him in that regard, sneaky little rogue that she was. Sure, she took him to task for slavery in the Imperium not long after they met. But then she would also stroke his ego with a wry smile, one that hinted she knew just how much of this was an act. And when they went to Redcliffe, and he saw his father -

  
Well, it wasn’t exactly what he wanted to think about right now. Not sitting outside her room in the Winter Palace, knowing his father was dead, knowing that Ellana was dying too.

  
But she’d been there on that day, and a thousand times since then. She’d looked so sad when he told her he was returning to Tevinter. Now she was the one leaving him, and it wasn’t fair, and he was so angry he wanted to set everything nearby on fire.

  
He felt Bull’s unmistakeable presence at his side then - warm and solid and huge. The Qunari sat down on a bench beside him.

  
“Well?” Dorian asked, leaning against his lover, relishing the warmth of his grey skin, even if every part of him ached after all the fighting they’d done.

  
“I don’t know if it was me that fucked it up or what, but she’s got some kind of blood poisoning. The wound wasn’t clean enough, I guess.”

  
Shit.

  
“It wasn’t you, amatus,” he said, trailing a hand up and down Bull’s back, feeling the scars and the muscles. “You cleaned your blade as best you could. She was dying right in front of us. You at least gave her a chance.”

  
Bull nodded, slowly. He put his hand on Dorian’s knee. “She deserves better than this.”

  
“Yes,” Dorian said, covering the big hand with his smaller one, squeezing it as best he could.

  
The rest of their band gathered as word spread. Josephine was the only one that cried openly, perhaps overwhelmed at last by her efforts to hold things together. Dorian wanted to joke that it was okay, that she could always make a new schedule, but even he knew better than that. The rest of them just sat and waited, quiet.

  
“You’re certain it was him, then?” Leliana asked as night fell. “Solas?”

  
Thom nodded. “Positive. The Viddasala said he would be there.” He colored a little. “And, well, he was kissing her. I don’t think she’d be kissing anyone else.”

  
That image was seared into Dorian’s mind - they’d crashed through the Eluvian right as it reactivated and saw Solas cradling Ellana, kissing her, her arm alight with the green of the Fade. Then the light was gone and so was he, and she was lying there in agony until Bull cut the shattered arm off and Dorian, shaking, did his best to seal the wound while Thom prayed for Andraste’s mercy. They knew it was all his doing. But what had he done to the Anchor? And what had he said to her?

  
Vivienne emerged then. She’d gone in to speak to the healers. “She’s resting at least, now. Celene’s own physicians are waiting on her. Her fever is going down, which is a good sign. All we can do is continue waiting.”

  
Silence, again. Sera kicked a loose cobblestone.

  
“This is what she gets, innit? Told her to stay away from that stupid elfy bastard. She was too stubborn to listen.”

  
Dorian wanted to snap at her but then he saw the look on her face. The words were venomous but there was sadness in her eyes. Again he saw the two of them on the ground by the massive eluvian. The absolute tenderness of that embrace.

  
“You know,” he said. “I think that was the first time I ever saw them kiss. Or touch at all, really.”

  
“Yeah,” Bull assented. “It was kind of weird, actually. It felt like something we shouldn't be seeing.”

  
“You know what?” Varric said then. He took a breath, hesitating, then shook his head. “I think she still owes me for that last game of Wicked Grace.”

_She'll wake up,_ Dorian told himself. _She'll pay you back_. He didn't say it out loud.

  
“Do you think it’s true?” Cullen asked. “Is he really an agent of Fen’Harel?”

  
“It would explain much,” Leliana said. “When I was trying to find him, I discovered that his background was not at all what he’d described. The village he claimed to have grown up in had been gone for thousands of years. I was a fool not to look sooner. I should have seen this.”

  
Dorian shared a glance with Thom then. Now wasn’t the time to share their theory - their absolutely idiotic, completely insane theory - that Solas was much more than just an agent of Fen’Harel.

  
“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again,” Bull said. “If I see the knife-eared bastard again, I’m killing him myself.”

  
“You may have to get in line,” Vivienne said. Sera nodded vigorously.

  
“You saw what he did to a small army of Qunari,” Dorian said, putting his hand on his lover’s, his heart suddenly sick with fear. “What do you think he’d do to you?”

  
“Did he really turn them to stone?” Cassandra asked. She’d taken off her vestments, and for the time being, she seemed just like the Seeker again.

  
“It’s the only explanation,” Dorian said. “We saw no other mages. But I have never seen magic of that kind.”

  
Josephine looked up then, eyes red. “Her clothes,” she said. “Someone get me her clothes. I should start pinning up the left sleeves. She’ll need that.”

  
“And her bows, too,” Sera said. “She - might not want to see them for a bit. I swear I don’t have my eye on any of them, too. That be plain rude.”

  
“I’ll go,” Dorian said. “I know where she keeps all of it.”

  
The truth was he wanted to go in there and shake her by the shoulders and will her to just wake up. It was such a simple thing.

  
_Wake up, tell me I’m wearing too much make-up, and help us fix this mess with Solas._

  
She looked so small, lying there in the big Orlesian bed. Dorian forgot that she was small sometimes. He sat at her side after the physician gave him a nod, excusing herself from the room. Surely Josephine and Sera could wait a moment while he watched over her. The crystal he gave her was on her bedside table and suddenly his heart lurched to think that he would never use it to reach out to her from Minrathous, that he would go into that den of vipers without being able to call on her for advice, or support, or a laugh. Before he knew it he’d taken her remaining hand - and then her eyes fluttered open.

  
“Am I alive?” she said, her voice quiet.

  
“Yes, darling. Don’t talk if it’s too much - it’s only me after all - let me get the physician - ”

  
She took a breath. Cleared her throat. Closed her eyes again.

  
“Why?”

  
His heart sank. “Why what?”

  
“Why am I alive?”

  
And, forsaken fool that he was, his words stuck in his throat. He was not good at kind words. He told Bull he hated him far more than he whispered words of love. He could picture her clear as day standing before Corypheus in Haven, then claiming her right as Inquisitor, then tramping through sand and snow and rain to help anyone who needed it. Teasing him about Bull when she found out (when the great lummox announced it). Swearing at Josephine and Vivienne every time they tried to put her in a dress. Casting out the Grey Wardens in a righteous fury and then questioning herself every day since then.

  
Quietly taking his hand when they made camp the night they left Redcliffe.

  
That was why she was alive. Why she needed to be alive.

  
But he couldn’t make any of these words rise to his lips.

  
Instead he just pressed her hand between both of his. “Rest. You need it.”

  
She breathed out once. Not quite a sigh. A sound of resignation. He sat there a long while, her hands pressed between his.

  
Within a day she was truly awake, but also mostly mute. She responded politely when spoken to, accepted the food she was given, but would not speak of Solas.

  
Leliana sent out her people, but they could find nothing.

  
“Whatever he said to her got to her good. Real good,” Bull said one afternoon in their room, after they’d visited her. “I’ve seen that face before on people in the midst of being reeducated. That’s the look of someone who’s reassembling who she is and what her place is in the world. I don’t envy her that look.”

  
There was a knock on their door - a courier, delivering a letter from Tevinter. Of course. Bull saw the seal and his scarred lip twisted a little.

  
“How much longer until you have to go?”

Dorian tossed the letter aside. “Do you think if we went back through the Eluvians we would find anything? Maybe even find Solas?”

 

Bull breathed out through his nose. “Don’t avoid the question.”

  
Dorian looked away from him, even though he knew that in a few short days ( _days_ , dammit), all he would want was to see that beautiful, scarred face.

  
“If Ellana can avoid talking about him, I can avoid talking about this. It hurts too much. All of it hurts too much.”

  
Ellana supported him when he chose not to reconcile with his father. Maybe she should have pushed him harder. Forced him to choose forgiveness. Maybe he should force her to talk now. Maybe Bull should force his kadan to talk about leaving. Maybe if they all just forced everything together they could force the world to make sense again.

  
Bull stepped closer, and tall as he was for a human, Dorian had to stand on tiptoe a little to accept the offered kiss. A sweet, chaste kiss. The kind he never thought he’d receive or deserve.

  
“That’s life, kadan. It hurts. It scars. But we face it and go on and find the joy we can.”

  
And like that, he found himself wanting Bull, wanting him both so he wouldn’t have to talk about it and so he could feel that joy, fierce and searing and clean as electricity. But even as he kissed him, started trying to push him backwards towards the bed, Bull pulled back and waited, expectant.

  
“Days,” Dorian said at last. “A week at most. It’s a long journey.”

  
“That it is, kadan.”

  
That was when the knock came. Dorian went to the door, swearing, fully prepared to threaten ice and fire and lightning upon the head of whoever it was - but it was Ellana. It was the first time he’d seen her out of bed.

  
“Come to the room where we set up the war table,” she said. “I need to tell you something.”

  
His heart twisted up and he wanted to hug her and tell her exactly what Bull had just told him - that this was life, that it hurt and scarred but it was better because she was in it - but instead he just smirked.

  
“Just something? My dear Inquisitor, you had better tell us everything.”

  
She smirked back, just a little. “As you wish, Magister Pavus.”

  
“Kaffas, did you have to say it that way?” He whined as they headed out. “It makes me think of my father.”

  
“I know,” she said. She touched his elbow, a fleeting touch with her only remaining hand, and then they continued on their way.

 

******  
I put myself back in the narrative  
I stop wasting time on tears  
******

 

They had to bring in chairs so everyone could fit in the dark, out of the way room. They brought one for her but she paced instead. Finally she stood with her back to them, looking out one of the windows.

  
“Solas and I - are both private people. We never talked much about our relationship with any of you. We didn’t hide it but we didn’t share it. And - I need you to understand us before you can understand anything else I’ll tell you.”

  
Dorian would be lying if he wasn’t excited to hear this. Afraid, but excited. Close as they grew, Ellana always rolled her eyes or chuckled - or, later, sighed and looked away - when he asked about Solas.

  
“The first time he kissed me it was in a dream. He found me in the Fade and I kissed him and he kissed me and it was - it was the first time I felt safe since the Conclave. It didn’t matter that it was a dream. It was real to me, to both of us. He apologized after, said he shouldn’t have done it. I persisted. And even after that, the first time he said he loved me - before that he told me that it would kinder in the long run if he just walked away. But he told me he loved me and I told him I loved him and every moment I spent with him still made me feel - safe.”

  
She turned around.

  
"In battle he put barriers around all of us to keep us safe. That always seemed - important to me. And - I know not many of you saw it, but that’s how he was when we were alone. I did my best to act like I was fine, but - I was carrying so much and I was so afraid and even with all of you - my closest friends - I didn’t want to let any of you down. I didn’t want you to carry my burden. But he always saw right through me. He was the one who was there no matter what.

  
“He was the one who could teach me about the Fade and my people and - he was the only other outsider. Not Fereldan or Orlesian. Not a Templar. A mage, but an apostate, unaffiliated with a Circle or with Tevinter or Kirkwall. Someone I could share any of my thoughts with without reproach. And - he loved me. He looked at me like he was a drowning man and I was the surface of the water. And he was funny and - and I know he could be distant and arrogant and long-winded and - ”

  
She was near tears, grasping at the place where her arm used to be. No matter how many nice things she said about him, the motion just made Dorian picture the bald mage burning on a spit. Slowly.

  
“You can slow down,” Cassandra said. “We’re listening.”

  
“Some of us are,” Sera said. “You going to say anything about the sex, or shall I just tune out?”

  
Ellana forced out a breath. It was almost a laugh. “It was - more than physical. It was - it was -”

  
“Beautiful bright shining electric,” Cole said then, from where he was perched on a chair. “Like waking up for the first time ever. New and ancient. And desperate.”

  
“Yes,” she said softly. “Like that.”

  
She turned away again, then turned back, her remaining hand tracing her face.

  
“He told me it couldn’t go on the day he removed my vallaslin. He told me he had discovered that they were slave markings, that the Dalish got it wrong. And it was one more mystery. How could he be so certain? But I agreed with him. I’d seen enough to know that my people were blind in so many ways. So he took them, and he told me I was beautiful and he kissed me and told me it had to end. But he never told me why. Now I know.”

  
There is a moment of silence. Dorian felt sick now. Cullen had to prompt her. “And…?”

  
“Solas is not an agent of Fen’Harel. He is Fen’Harel.”

  
Silence again - silence like the moment before a man falls from the gallows.

  
“So we were right,” Thom said. “We - maybe you were too feverish to notice, but we saw plenty of clues on our journey to fight the Qunari.”

  
“I think I saw them too,” she admitted. “I just didn’t want to believe them. Not until he stood there in front of me and told me everything.”

  
And then she laid it out for them. How he wanted to free the slaves and stop the Evanuris. How he formed the Veil (the Veil, the damned _Veil_  itself!) to stop them. How he awoke in a world that might as well have been Tranquil, saw his people devastated, and vowed to rewrite his mistakes. To tear down the Veil. To see their world burn.

  
Except for one little problem.

  
Her.

  
Well, and Corypheus. But that was dealt with.

  
There was silence when she finished. What did you say to all of that? How did you prove any of it? And then Cole spoke again.

  
“He hurts. An ancient hurt from when everything sang the same. He wants it back the way it was. But she - she makes it all real. He can’t cast it aside. Can’t forget the smell of her skin or the sound of her laugh. Not for all the buried sleeping ones, not for all the friends he’s lost.”

  
For once, the lilting rhythm of the spirit’s voice made perfect, frightening sense.

  
“But is that what he told you when you saw him?” Cassandra asked. “That he would give up his plan?”

  
She had to walk away from the table then. Her hand was on the stump of her left arm, and her head was bowed low.

  
“I spent the last few days lying in bed, pitying myself, wishing I could just let it all go and not have to decide any of it. But I owe this to him. None of the rest of you do. That’s why I will tell the Exalted Council that the Inquisition should disband.  Because I won’t let him do this -  but I won’t kill him either.”

  
Another long, long silence.

  
“Then what will you do?” Leliana asked.

  
“I need to help him see how much this world is worth saving. I need to see if there is another way to restore the People - to give them a home. To stop the persecution of mages. The endless fighting between Tevinter and the Qunari.”

  
“In other words, you want to fix all of Thedas,” Vivienne said wryly.

  
“I - we - whoever - wouldn’t even have to fix all of it - just show that it can be fixed,” she said. “That we can change. That the world could be wide enough for all of us.”

  
“This is absolute, total madness, yeah? And I’m not the only one who sees it, right?” Sera said. “If the crazy bald fucker wants to destroy the world, we destroy him first. Simple as that.”

  
“But all of these are problems that we should try and fix anyway,” Ellana responded. “Isn’t that the purpose of the Inquisition? To restore order?”

  
“But you want to disband the Inquisition,” Leliana pointed out.

  
“I - I just want to save him. To save all of us. I’ll talk to spirits. I’ll find Abelas and the other sentinel elves. I’ll go through every scrap of paper he left in Skyhold and every ruin we can find and I will find a way to make all of this right.”

 

They were silent again. Of course this was what she wanted, Dorian thought. It was what she always wanted. Naively and whole-heartedly. To fix everything and everyone.

  
“Let us take another night to think,” Cassandra said. “Josephine can only hold them back for so much longer. One thing is certain - they will never allow us to keep the Inquisition as it was. We must imagine a new way forward.”

  
She said ‘we’ but Dorian knew she meant ‘you.’ it always meant Ellana alone. Ellana ran a hand over the stump of her arm.

  
“I will never judge any of you who choose not to follow me after tomorrow,” she says. “But a night's sleep won't change my mind. Solas is worth saving. He can be saved. And I will make it happen.”

  
Dorian played it over and over again in his mind as he walked back towards his room. She couldn’t be serious. And if she was serious, this couldn’t be her solution.

  
“She’s lost it, right?” He said at last to Bull.

  
Bull shrugged and began removing his harness. “Solas was always a tough read for me. You knew there was a lot going behind that mask, but not what. I never got the impression that he wanted to harm us, or that he actually thought of us as any less than himself.”

  
“Really, now? How many times did he argue with me over Tevinter? How many times did he grill you on the Qun?”

  
“And was he not the first person to try and reassure me of his respect for me when I became Tal’Vashoth?” Bull shook his head. “All those chess games we played together. I did get a feel for his mind. He was subtle but also single-minded. Even brutal. If tearing the Veil to ribbons is what he wants, then I don’t know that we can stop him. But then there’s the big goddamn kink in all of it.”

  
“What?”

  
“Her. There’s a reason the Qun forbids love and relationships, you know. And those two are walking proof of it. If anything can derail him from that mission of his, it’s her,” he’d settled onto the bed now, and Dorian joined him. “You know, it's funny. I never really trusted Ellana’s assessment of people. She’s too trusting. Too naive. If it was on her word alone, I wouldn't be saying this. But I trust the look I saw in his eyes when he left her behind.”

  
“So are you saying you would help her?”

  
“In my own way, yes,” Bull ran one finger along Dorian’s jaw until their faces were close. “What do you say, kadan? You take down the bastards in the Magisterium, I track down Venatori, together we help those two crazy kids find their way back to each other?”

  
Dorian breathed in the smell of him, trying to memorize it - skin and horn and leather and sweat - knowing he would need it in the long nights to come.

  
“Why do you always have to have such insane plans?” He sighed.

  
“Oh,” Bull grinned. “I think I have one or two you’ll like.”

 

******  
And when my time is up, have I done enough?  
Will they tell our story?  
******

 

The next morning, Ellana put on the formal uniform she hated and stormed the Exalted Council and threw Divine Justinia’s writ at their feet, and told them she served Divine Victoria and no one else. They found her on the balcony later, looking out at the countryside of Orlais.

  
“You know, when I went in there, I wasn’t even sure what I was going to say,” she said.

  
“You made the right decision,” Cassandra said. “This way you have official standing. Resources.”

  
“And nothing stops us from running operations beyond the bounds of the Inquisition. Operations Solas will find more difficult to track,” Leliana agreed.

  
“To be honest, I’m not sure what I would have done if you had disbanded us,” Cullen admitted.

 

“Oh, I already have plans for you, Commander,” Ellana said. “You are going home. If we get one more letter from Mia, I may have to go myself out of sheer guilt.”

  
Plans. What were the plans? And would they ever be enough? But there in the sunshine, Dorian knew it was not the time to ask. They would all have to leave soon. There would be time enough for plans.

  
“Well, before we all get scattered to the winds, there is one last thing I need to share with you all,” Varric said, pulling a book out of the satchel at his side. “Most Holy, would you do the honors?”

  
Cassandra took it from him and read the cover. “All This Shit Is Weird by Varric Tethras. Varric, that’s a terrible title!”

  
“You didn’t,” Ellana said.

  
“Hey, you’re the one who told me I should write it! I even told you the title way back at our big victory party,” the dwarf said smugly.

  
“It’s about us!” Cassandra cried out. She sounded so girlishly excited that for a moment Dorian forgot she was the head of the Chantry, one of the most powerful women in Thedas. “It’s the story of the Inquisition!”

  
“I’ve got a couple bottles of wine,” Varric said. “Want to read through the best parts?”

  
“This is gonna be good,” Bull laughed.

  
“There had better not be any - improprieties in it,” Vivienne said.

  
“And you’d better have spelled my name right,” Dorian couldn’t resist adding.

  
As Cassandra began to read, a miraculous thing happened. Dorian saw it first, then glanced at the others until they all became aware. It was Ellana’s smile. She was smiling. And when Cassandra read about the templar who had seen the worst of humanity but still had time to style his hair, it happened.

  
“For the last time, I do not style my hair!” Cullen cried out.

  
She laughed. Actually, genuinely, straight up from the belly laughed. And maybe Dorian hadn’t really noticed it before, but it was the first time he’d heard the sound in a long, long time. So they all laughed with her, and basked in that moment, until Cassandra continued reading.

  
“ _The bald elf spun, mage staff crackling like the city after a good man’s murder._

  
_‘Better to fade out than to burn away.’_ ”

  
They all tensed now, glancing at Ellana, but she was still smiling. A softer, sadder smile, but still a smile.

  
“Go on,” she said.

  
“ _But his staff wasn’t the only thing that made the air crackle._ Varric, where is this going? _Whenever the Inquisitor was nearby, it was like there was electricity in the air between them. In-between all the fighting and arguing and politicking, she always seemed to find time to stare at him across crowded rooms. They liked to pretend that it wasn’t obvious, but it was_ ,” Cassandra’s voice got softer. “ _Because it wasn’t just puppy dog attraction, the kind of thing you could roll your eyes at. It was real love. The kind of thing you couldn’t ignore anymore than you could ignore a fully armed Qunari with a spear in your face, and just as dangerous. Just as real._ ”

  
It was quiet now. Ellana chuckled. “So I guess we weren’t as private as we thought.”

  
“Oh, please. Anyone in a room with the two of you knew how you felt,” Dorian said. “What we spent an inordinate amount of time and money betting on was whether or not either of you had done something about it.”

  
“The book hasn’t gone to print yet,” Varric said. “That’s part of why I wanted you to read some of it tonight. I can remove any reference to your relationship. Just say the word.”

  
“It could look bad for the Inquisition,” Leliana pointed out. “Knowing the Inquisitor was our enemy’s lover? People might trust us less.”

  
Dorian thought then to what Bull said. Love was the giant kink in this whole mess. But it was also the one light that might lead them forward.

  
“Keep it,” Ellana said. “Every word. I want the story out there. I want everyone to know it was real. No matter what he does now - I want people to know he is still just a man. A man who loved me and protected me. Who helped all of us because it was the right thing to do, no matter what his own goals were.”

  
It grew quiet. Cassandra closed the book.

  
“I meant what I said to you before the council,” she said. “The Inquisition has brought you many things, not all of them by your choice. I wish that whatever happiness you had with him was one of the things you could hold on to. I wish he did not cause you so much pain.”

  
Ellana nodded. Her gaze was far away, on things none of them could see yet. “It still hurts, yes. It always will. But in a strange way it doesn’t hurt as much now as it did before. I know now. There’s no more wondering. I know I will see him again.”

  
“Yes,” Cassandra said. “I expect you will, one way or another.”

  
It was then that Dorian felt Bull’s gaze on him. He looked up and smiled, and Bull smiled back. A promise. For the first time, Minrathous didn’t feel so far away.

 

******  
Oh, I can’t wait to see you again  
It’s only a matter of time  
******

 

They all left quietly, one at a time, without real good-byes. Those would have been worse. They shared the same promise. They would all see each other again, one way or another. At last Ellana was alone.

  
She had the copy of Varric’s book in her hands. It was heavier than she expected. Certainly chock full of things that never happened, as well as things that did. She flipped again to the last page, the one where she stood on her balcony at Skyhold greeting the dawn, much as she greeted the sunset now. She wished in vain that there were more pages, but maybe it was better not to know the ending yet. It was better to know that there were still more stories to tell.

  
The sun went down as she stood there, looking out at Orlais, but not really seeing it. Instead, she saw his face.

 

******  
Will they tell our story?  
Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?  
**********

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, Dorian stole that chapter away from me and I’m not feeling 100% on writing him and Bull together (as much as I ADORE their romance - I found out about it after I finished Trespasser, went back to an old save file, replayed enough to get all their banter and get them together, then replayed Trespasser just so I could see how it changed), but such is life!
> 
> Our next (and final) chapter is “It’s Quiet Uptown,” my speculation on what might happen after Trespasser.


	12. It's Quiet Uptown, Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is it! I spent a lot of time debating exactly how this would end. I actually had 2 endings planned - a very sad one paired with “The World Was Wide Enough” and then this one - but then I was too depressed by the sad ending to write it. Obviously, all of this is total speculation (and very vague speculation at that) about what could happen after Trespasser. Stay tuned for part two!

How did they get here? Ellana wasn’t sure. Did it even really matter? It was all move and countermove, over and over again. Opposing each other but never fully. Seeing each other in dreams and never speaking. All she knew was that it was about to end. After two years of traveling, meeting with dignitaries from every country in Thedas, trying to steal Elvhen artifacts out from under him, trying to improve the situation of elves so they would not immediately flock to him, begging him every night in dreams to change his mind - it would all end now.

  
She was in prison, if you could call it that. Her room was spacious and comfortable, even if it was under every ward possible, along with several guards. Dorian’s crystal no longer worked there. The truth was she wouldn't have told him exactly where she was, even if it did. She would have just told him she was alive, taken after being wounded in their last battle against Fen’Harel’s forces and falling behind enemy lines. She hoped they weren't planning anything rash. She wasn’t leaving here until she saw him, as she’d made clear several times. She would deal with Solas, and Solas alone.

  
They always looked at her funny when she called him that. The guards. They only called him Fen’Harel.

  
“Have you made yourself ready?” The guard asked.

  
“Yes,” she said.

  
They led her through several rooms, many of them grand, several of them including chairs she might have described as thrones, but he wasn’t in any of them. She was surprised at first, but thought better of it. He would never want a throne. Instead she was brought into a small room, a library. And he was there - standing in the center, flooding her senses instantly, uncontrollably, as she drank in the sight of him, and then hated herself for doing it.

  
“Andaran atishan,” he said. Formal words said in a too-soft voice. He looked to the guard. “You may leave us.”

  
He looked tired. His posture was not as regal as it had been when she saw him in the place beyond the eluvians. Or maybe it was the simple black garb he wore. Maybe it was just two years of rebellion, of war.

  
“Are you recovering well?” He asked.

  
She nodded. The problem was no longer the wound in her side. Her problem was that her throat was stuck. There was too much to say and nothing to say at all.

  
“It was rash of you to be present at the battle. I thought the Inquisition knew better than to put you on the front lines.” It was the same voice he used to use when he chastised her for darting in too close to enemies or climbing steep cliffs and it seared like a brand inside her. How dare he? How dare he stand here and just be Solas and not Fen’Harel?

  
“The dreams were cruel, you know,” she said. “Always standing there watching, never speaking. Just enough to keep me longing.”

  
She wanted the words to be stinging but they were sad. He looked away.

  
“Surely you know by now my weakness for you.”

  
It was true. How many times could he have reached out and crushed what was left of the Inquisition? How many times had his agents passed along information about their mutual enemies in Tevinter? Of course he was not totally innocent. His soldiers had killed hers. He had sabotaged their plans. But never enough soldiers. Never enough sabotage. They were on the brink now. He had nearly everything he needed to complete his plan. The battle where she was captured was over a final artifact, the one that would take the place of the long-gone Anchor. The one that would let him physically walk the Fade.

  
“If this is an interrogation, it isn't a good one,” she said.

  
“No, it isn't. I wanted to see you. To tell you what is coming.”

  
The hair on her arms stood up. So he’d been successful. When she was wounded, the outcome of the battle still seemed uncertain. She hadn't discovered anything in her time as his prisoner. She hoped against hope that they had been successful in removing the artifact.

  
“You have it, don’t you?” She said. “There is nothing else standing in your way.”

  
“No.”

  
The small room seemed smaller. She made a sound that was neither laugh nor sob. All this work. All this planning. All this love. And none of it mattered.

  
“So this is it. You brought me here just to let me know that I will die soon? Thanks for the heads up.”

  
“I do not know who will live and who will die. I do not even know if I will survive. Creating the Veil sent me into sleep for millenia.”

  
This - was a possibility she had not considered. That he could die and she could live in the world he had wrought without him. No. It was not possible. He was always the one with all the power. All the answers. Always one step ahead. It was a fundamental law of the universe. Ripping the Veil out wouldn’t change that.

  
“It’s always easier to destroy than to create,” she said.

  
“I suppose you are right,” he replied.

  
“So then am I your prisoner until you go through with your plan?”

  
“No. When my agents brought you here I immediately contacted your allies to inform them what happened. I told them that once you were well enough to travel, I would return you to them. No questions asked, no favors required. When you are ready to go, I will send word to them to expect you.”

  
A little of the pressure eased in her chest. He stood straighter now, tried to look her in the eye, and then looked away.

  
“I understand if you wish to go immediately. But - if I could - I would like to take you somewhere.”

  
She wanted to scream at him. Beat her fist against him. Fall at his feet and cry. She knew she should even want to kill him. She could refuse - he phrased it as an offer, not a condition or a command. Part of her wanted to. But it was him. What was it she said to him, when she offered to walk this path at his side? I can’t bear the thought of you alone.

  
It was in his eyes, his shoulders, his hands. He was so alone.

  
“Alright,” she said. His posture softened immediately. She felt herself soften in answer. No - she still needed to protect herself. “But if you’re looking for forgiveness, I won’t give it.”

  
“I wouldn’t deserve it if you did.”

 

****  
Look at where we are  
Look at where we started  
I know I don’t deserve you  
But hear me out - that would be enough…  
****

 

Solas watched Ellana (Ellana Ellana Ellana) as she wobbled coming out of the eluvian. She bent down and braced herself against her knee with her good hand, and he wanted to reach out and help her stand, but restrained himself. It wasn’t what she wanted. After a moment, she looked up and saw where they were - the mountain ruin where she’d fought the Qunari, the one with the mural of Fen’Harel (him, but it felt like another life entirely) removing vallaslin from slaves.

  
“We never got to come here together, I guess,” she said. She still followed his thoughts so easily.

  
“No. We didn’t.”

  
She nodded. “Was there something you wanted to show me?”

  
“Not in particular. I simply thought - I gave you so little time, the last time we saw each other. The Anchor gave us so little time.”

  
She looked out across the water. “You could have stayed after you deactivated it. You could have taken me with you.”

  
Solas wondered if there would be a day when he stopped finding out all the ways he hurt her.

  
“Yes. But I did not. I have thought since then that you might have more questions.”

  
Instead of heading into the building, she walked around to the side of it, where all the prophet’s laurel grew and the halla wandered. She always loved nature, breathing more easily around root and sky than buildings of stone. He followed at her side, as if it was four years ago, and they were ambling through the Emerald Graves in search of kindling, or whatever excuse they had come up with to buy them a precious few moments alone. She stopped when they were closer to the edge of the water.

  
“We were so amazed by this place’s beauty when we came here. Bull and Dorian and Thom and me,” she said after a moment of looking at the distant mountains. “And it was a sanctuary. Then I looked at the painting of Fen’Harel removing the vallaslin and even though it hurt all I could do was miss you.”

  
“Do you regret letting me take your vallaslin?” He asked. It was something he’d wondered many times.

  
“No,” she said, scuffing at the dirt with her boot. “But sometimes I look at my reflection and miss who I was when I had it.”

  
“You would not be the first,” he admitted. “Even if this place was a sanctuary, even if it was better than slavery, coming here still meant the loss of everything a person took for granted. The status of the Evanuris as gods. The entire way they saw the world. Sometimes it meant leaving behind family and friends for good. I didn’t have an immediate answer for any of them as to how the war would end, what kind of world we would have when it was over.”

  
She walked back toward the building now, through the bunk beds where he could still picture freed slaves sleeping, singing, weeping, praying to him for protection. Telling stories that elevated him to a status he did not truly deserve. She stood before the mural, dwarfed by the wolf statue before it.

  
“Thanks for the bow, by the way,” she said, gesturing to the empty box at the wolf’s feet. “It was a good one.”

  
He smiled, but she did not see. He noticed she was not looking at him at all. “I am pleased to hear you solved the riddle. Though not surprised.”

  
She walked out to stand on the balcony behind the statue, where the veilfire was. “After you told me who you were, I thought about this place again. And - I was proud of you. You made all of this to help people, to get them to see the truth. To protect them. It was everything I loved about you. I’m sorry it went so wrong in the end.”

  
“These are stories told in desperation, ones that give me more credit than I truly deserve. And I told you I didn’t deserve your forgiveness,” he said quietly.

  
“And I told you I would not offer it. This world may not have been what you wanted, but that doesn’t mean I can forgive you for destroying it.” She shook her head, as if to clear a thought. “No. If this is the last time I’ll ever see you, then I don’t want to talk about that. There’s no point. If you haven’t changed your mind yet, you won’t change it now.”

  
How did he think this conversation would go? Why bother bringing her here, anyway? She was right. It was too late now. He’d rallied elves from all over Thedas, taken countless lives, and pushed her away for four long years since Corypheus’s defeat. If he stopped now, what did any of it mean? Yet his throat still closed at her words. This is the last time I’ll ever see you.

  
“So settle a bet for me,” she said after a moment. “Were you ever actually a child, or did you spring fully formed from the Fade?”

  
Ellana had said she would not offer forgiveness, yet here it was again - another small mercy dropped from her lips.

  
“Let me guess - this bet is with Varric.”

  
“Well, it started with him, but I know Dorian has money on it now too.”

  
“And you?”

  
“Oh, yes.” She laughed but it was a shadow of the sound he had heard from her before. “I have two gold pieces wagered that you were a terribly irritating child who talked back to his elders all the time. I know the type. They’re all still in a state of - well - dread about you and what you are. I still can’t help but see you as just a man.”

  
That may have been what made him love her most, he decided as they talked of the stories he could share about Arlathan and his life in it. He said it to her after the events at Adamant. She could really see him for who he was. In a way, revealing that he was Fen’Harel just clarified her vision of him. Erased the blurred parts. Eventually they walked out of the building and sat down on the edge of one of the bluffs overlooking the water.

  
“So if all Elvhen had magic back then, I would have been a mage,” she said. “Hard to imagine that. Were different people still attracted to the different kinds of magic naturally?”

  
“Certainly. And not everyone had the same degree of skill. Hence why the Evanuris could rise to such a formidable stature - not everyone could sunder the earth or reshape the waking world the way they could.”

  
“What kind of mage do you think I would have been?”

  
Solas took that moment to study her, although it was a question he himself had already considered. Little about her had changed - she still wore her hair shaved on the sides and longer on the top, where it was dense and springy and soft. She still had the same piercing gaze, even though she was lost in thought now. The way she moved was different now, because of the missing arm, but still as graceful. He pictured her then as he did sometimes, in the flowing dresses the women he knew favored many lifetimes ago, with magic patterns that shifted and changed in the light. He imagined her wielding bow and magic alike at his side, driving the Evanuris back. Teaching freed slaves. Singing old songs. Speaking fluidly in his tongue when she lay at his side.

  
“You have a will matched by few people I know,” he said. “That would have served you well. You are protective of those you care about, and fierce in doing so. Varric himself has compared you to Andraste and her bowls of fire. I imagine you wielding flame, then, and spirit to heal and protect.”

  
“There are quite a few people I’ve met who would benefit from a fireball getting lobbed their way,” she said dryly. “Wait - have you read Varric’s book about us? I think he said the Andraste bit in there somewhere.”

  
“Perhaps I heard him say it once.”

  
“Liar. You’ve read it. Admit it.”

  
He didn’t deserve this ease at her side. This feeling of normalcy. This peace. The laugh bubbling under her words. Yet he went on.

  
“A few of its pages may have come to my attention at one point or another.”

  
“Come on - it’s not half bad.”

  
“It’s not half true, either.”

  
She paused then, brow furrowed in thought. His shoulders tensed. What could she be considering?

  
“So - that thing you did sometimes when we lay together. Asking if you could come. That was an Elvhen thing. Wasn’t it?”

  
He couldn’t help but chuckle. It was so her - so blunt, so disconnected to their earlier conversation. He could so easily imagine the youth she had been, frustrating her Keeper with ill-timed questions. It was a rough edge that age had not worn off of her yet. How old was she now? Twenty-seven summers when the Inquisition began, twenty-eight when it ended, thirty when he took her arm and told her who he was - so she was thirty-two now. In a world where most of her people did not see the turn of a century. His heart ached. It should not be possible. It should not be permissible that she (bright and shining and kind) should be reaching the peak of her life already.

  
“What? No answer to that one?”

  
Always so impatient. “I was not jesting when I told you that much had been lost with our fall. When you have infinite time and magic to draw on - of course you ask when it's time to stop. It could go on for quite a while, if both partners were willing.”  
“You must have thought I was very rude,” she said. “I certainly never asked for permission.”

  
Immediately his mind summoned images of her spread wide before him, one hand on the back of his head, the other grasping the sheets above her. Breathless as she demanded her release. Something she had asked for timidly before, something he had enjoyed exploring and learning alongside her. She was so close now, sitting on the stone beside him.

  
“I never found you anything less than exquisite,” he said. His voice was unsteadier than he would have liked. She was tense beside him now, watchful. “But I will not deny that I often wished I could pleasure you the way I would have in ancient times. I wish I could just enjoy you for days. I wish we could join together with our magic alone. I wish -”

  
It was more than he ever meant to say. But she was looking at him now, for the first time since they started talking. And just like always, the focus of her gaze made things slide out of the theoretical and into the real. This was her, her her her her her, not some memory of her or something he’d imagined. And this was it - he would never see her again -

  
She leaned forward and he met her. Their lips touched and everything around him, everything in him, condensed to an ancient roar of pain and desire. He leaned towards her and she made a muffled noise of alarm. Of course - she had only one arm to brace with. He wrapped both arms around her and pulled her closer instead, held her so tight that he knew it hurt. She opened her mouth and he followed her rhythm, darting his tongue in. Her hand fisted in his tunic, to strike him or to hold him close he was not sure.

  
“ _No,_ ” she said at last, and pushed him away. Stumbled to her feet. “I can’t do this. I can’t sit here and kiss you and forget that you are about to destroy every other thing I love in this world besides you. I can’t.”

  
She stormed away and he followed, the ancient roar still drowning out every other thought in his mind but being near her. He thought she would go to the eluvian, but instead she went back into the building, to the statue of the wolf and the mural on the wall.

  
“Maybe you aren’t this man after all,” she said, pointing at him. “This man cared. The man I knew cared. He protected people. You are nothing more than a selfish fool who would destroy millions of lives rather than live with the consequences of his mistake.”

  
The ancient roar was crashing out now. He was shouting at her, something he had never done before. “I do not do this for myself. I do this for every person who once walked these halls and trusted me, believed in me, and in my ability to protect them.”

  
“And what of the people out there who trusted and believed in you? You made the world they live in. Are you no less responsible for their lives?”

  
“Trusted and believed in me? Until the Inquisition I was reviled as an apostate by templars and Circle mages and a knife ear by humans and a flat ear by the Dalish. Who out there ever trusted and believed in me besides you?”

  
“Fine! Let’s say it was just me. You are still killing me, Solas. Me and everyone I care about, everyone I love, everything I have ever known. And you’re just going to shut your eyes and pretend it isn’t happening because it won’t happen right in front of you - ”  
“None of that is true - ”

  
“If you’re going to kill me at least have the decency to do it while looking me in the eye!”

  
The metallic sound of the knife hitting the stone floor shook him. He didn’t see where she’d pulled it from, but that was one of her talents. What mattered was that she had drawn it and thrown it at his feet, and now stood there, ten paces away, staring at him. Trembling.

  
“Go ahead,” she said. “Pick it up and cut my throat. Stab me in the chest. No - you don’t even need it. Turn me into a statue. Make me some landmark little Elvhen children will walk past someday. Ellana Lavellan, Inquisitor, Herald of Andraste, the fool who thought she could change the Dread Wolf’s heart.”

  
“Vhenan - ” His voice was so weak it didn’t even sound like it came from him.

  
“You’re not going to do it,” she said. “Because as much as you hate the consequences of what you did, you don’t want to see the consequences of what you are about to do. And now - now I have to go back to them. To all our friends, all the people who had the chance to tell me I was insane, to mount their own plans against you. To take far more brutal action against you than I ever would have allowed. And yet they trusted and believed that you were worth saving. That you would see that their lives mattered. Now I have to go back and tell them that we were all wrong.”

  
And like that, something in her broke. Her shoulders slumped forward. Tears started to fall but she wiped them away. She did not storm away this time. She retreated. He followed at a distance, until she was standing at the eluvian. She stood before it and then spoke again, this time without turning.

  
“I want to forgive you vhenan. Vhenan’ara. You are my heart, my journey. My friend. But you have made forgiveness unimaginable.” Now she turned, fixed him with those grey eyes. “I hope you find peace in the days to come. I hope you do not die alone. Good-bye.”

  
Then she was gone. It was not forgiveness. It was something more terrible, more sad, more absolute.

  
Solas stood there a long while, in the ruins of one world, thinking about another.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys, this chapter got away from me so hard. It got away from me so hard that it split into 2 parts and then spawned a 5 chapter long sequel fic that I will posting once I've polished the second half of this chapter. Thank you once again to everyone who has left kudos and comments - you make me so happy!


	13. It's Quiet Uptown, Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here it is: the end!

Cassandra Pentaghast had seen many things in her life. Heroes. Dragons. Would-be gods. War, death, and love. Kings and empresses and the Maker’s own mercy.

  
She never thought she would see the day when Ellana Lavellan came into their war room (well, war tent - they were in the field) and said:

  
“Solas is beyond saving. And I don’t think we can stop him.”

  
Ellana stayed for the rest of their council. Cullen emphatically insisted that they had to act now, and send in their mages and Templars, who would either dispel or nullify his magic enough so someone could close enough to him and kill him. Ellana didn’t flinch at those words as she had in the past, whenever someone inevitably brought up the idea. Their contingency plan. This time, she just stared straight ahead.

  
“No matter what, we can’t do nothing. We can’t just stand here and let him win. I won’t allow it,” the commander said, his voice rising to a shout. That was when Ellana rose.

  
“I’m going to clear my head.”

  
“Ellana - ” Cassandra began. The elf hesitated by the flap of the tent. Maker, why was she so bad with words? Ellana was her friend. She was hurting. And she, Cassandra Pentaghast, Divine, Most Holy, had no words of comfort to offer. “I am sorry.”

  
“So am I,” Ellana said.

  
“Andraste, preserve us,” Cullen said when she was gone and the silence began to consume them. “We should never have listened to her. We should have stopped him months ago.”

  
Cassandra rested her finger on top of the carved wolf’s head they used to represent Solas’s location.

  
“I wanted to believe in him, too. I always admired his courage. His fortitude. His dedication to his principles, yet his willingness to hear from others. Do you know he once told me he was open to believing in the Maker? I suppose I thought Andraste’s grace and mercy would hold sway over his heart eventually. I thought the Maker would protect us.”

  
Cullen didn’t react to that. He began putting on his armor. “I’m going to talk to Dorian. See what they can do about increasing the potency of their ability to dispel. This isn’t over.”

  
When Cassandra stepped out of the tent later, she saw something else she never thought she’d witness again - all of them, their inner circle, together. They’d been flung wide across Thedas in their efforts to secure change, and yet they were here again. Varric looking older, even a little more regal in his bearing (but still blaspheming with every other breath). Sera in plaidweave, theorizing about what kind of grenade she would use to finally kill Solas, now that that was the plan. Blackwall, silent and grim, more grey in his beard, as frustrated as she was that he could not redeem this greatest of lost souls. Bull and his Chargers, already running drills for fighting the Dread Wolf’s forces, pragmatic as ever. The Qunari heaved a sigh every now and then, though. Dorian was gesturing furiously as he and Cullen talked about their idea. Vivienne was interjecting where she could.

  
They were all going to die.

  
“You are hurting, grieving, for yourself but also for your faith, the bright spark that has led you all this way. Was it a shiny false thing all this time? Even he didn’t think so, the sad wolf with the broken jaws. But here we are.”

  
Cassandra didn't need to turn to see Cole. What would happen to him if Solas succeeded?

  
“Fear, a black stone coated in rot, heavy on my chest. I do not know what will happen to me. To you. I cannot heal this hurt.”

  
His voice broke. Cassandra turned to face him, but he was already gone - flitting among the troops in the clearing nearby.

  
Cassandra continued watching them all, and in her mind began to pray. It was the kind of wordless prayer she'd lifted up more and more often in recent years, more just her soul reaching out for the Maker and Andraste alike. Pleading. Then, standing there, seeing the worry etched into all their faces, she added words:

  
_You once gave us Ellana, the miracle we needed to defeat Corypheus. I know she doesn't see it that way but I always have. What miracle will you send us now?_

  
She retired to the tent to run through their options once more, and it wasn’t until the steady clamor outside went still that she realized something had happened. She was already standing when Cullen ran in.

  
"Cassandra," he said. "You won't believe - it's - you need -"

  
"Maker’s breath, Cullen, now is not the time for your stammering!"

  
"Come outside."

  
Cassandra stepped outside, a hand already on her sword. For a moment the sunlight blinded her, and then she saw him. Standing there amidst their companions as if he had never left. Solas.

  
She drew her sword and leveled it at his throat. At least the golden armor didn’t protect that. He looked at her, impassive, his hands still behind his back.

  
"Most Holy," he said. "I have come to discuss terms for surrender."

  
"We will never surrender to you. What point is there in surrender when you will kill us all anyway?"

  
He inclined his head a little. He - smiled? Her hand got tighter on the sword. She'd heard the tales of him turning soldiers to stone with a glance. But maybe she could try - cut his head off before anything else happened -

  
"The terms for my surrender," he said. "The first of which is that Cullen calls off the Templars he is even now signaling. It will not be necessary to Silence me or drain my mana, if indeed you could. I am here of my own free will and mean no harm."

  
"And we should trust your word?" Vivienne. "Tell me, Solas. If Corypheus had walked into Skyhold and said he wanted to talk, do you think we would have given him the chance?"

  
He smiled _again_. One more and Cassandra knew she wouldn't be responsible for her actions. "While neither you nor I may have given him the chance, I have every confidence that there is someone who would."

  
Ellana. Cassandra scanned the small crowd forming around them but there was no sign of her. There were woods nearby. She’d probably gone there.

  
“Are you saying you wish to surrender to the Chantry? To the Inquisitor?” Cassandra said. The tip of her sword wavered.

  
“I am.”

  
She sheathed her blade. “The Inquisitor left a short while ago. She was quite shaken when she returned to us. Magister Pavus will call for her.”

  
Dorian was already holding up the crystal, whispering urgently. Then he met Cassandra’s gaze and shook his head.

  
“She is not responding.”

  
“Send scouts into the woods. It's probably where she has gone,” Cullen ordered. “We will take the prisoner into custody and await her return.”

  
Solas gave the faintest nod of assent. Cassandra lowered her sword and Bull stepped up, putting one giant hand on Solas’s shoulder. She’d just been thinking how much taller and stronger Solas looked now in his armor, but next to the Qunari, he still looked delicate.

  
“I made a vow last time I saw you,” he said, tightening his grip on the elf. “I swore I’d rip you limb from limb myself. I dare you to give me a reason.”

  
Solas’s jaw clenched and Cassandra reached immediately for her ability to dispel magic, but he let out a breath through his nose instead. “I assure you it won’t be necessary. You need not even put me in chains. Take me to the war table and I will tell you where you may begin sending officers to check in with my commanders and confirm they have no plans to attack.”

  
Everything was a rush after that. There were a dozen messages to be sent and reports to corroborate. The day was creeping away from them before they even realized it. But Ellana still had not returned.

  
“Kaffas. She’s still not responding,” Dorian said after trying one more time with his crystal.

  
“If night falls, I will seek her in the Fade,” Solas said.

  
He’d been so unreadable all day - well, more so than usual - but there was an undeniable softness in his voice when the topic of conversation turned to her. Cassandra wanted to find it romantic. But all she could see was the look on Ellana’s face when she returned without her vallaslin and without him, when he left them at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, when she first awoke in the Winter Palace without her arm. Yet he sat here, speaking with that tone, as if he was the one in pain?

  
“Our scouts have not found her,” Cullen confirmed. “But she is well skilled in hiding herself in the wilderness. Perhaps some of the Dalish who joined you would fare better?”

  
“I fear how she would react to the sight of my forces.”

  
“Maybe she’s just finally buggered off,” Sera said. “Had it. Given up on your sorry ass. Decided she’d rather die alone in the woods than sit here and try and save the world again. Can’t say I’d blame her.”

  
“Nor can I,” he said.

  
“Shit. Did we just agree?” Sera laughed. “Well, that she has to come back and see.”

  
Night did fall with no further sign of her. They were discussing where to keep Solas for the night and who would keep watch on him, who would mollify the various representatives of Orlais and Ferelden and Tevinter and Nevarra and Antiva and the Free Marches who were all demanding his immediate execution, Inquisitor be damned, when the tent opened.

  
“Cullen’s right. We have to act quickly,” Ellana said without preamble. She was stalking around the tent, eyes glazed over, hand shaking as she gestured. “If we want to stand a chance of winning we’ll need to trick him. Ask for parlay. He may listen if it's me coming - we didn’t part well but he may still - and if we're going to kill him I should be there - it should be me -”

  
She paused then, noticing for the first time the deathly stillness of the tent. She met Cassandra’s eyes first.

  
“What happened?”

  
Solas responded before she could. “Inquisitor -”

  
She froze, then turned towards the sound of his voice, and just as Varric had written in his book, you could feel the air change. Cassandra was reminded again of that day five years ago when she’d dragged her reluctant prisoner through the snow towards a rift, when the apostate she’d trusted out of necessity took hold of the prisoner and helped her close the rift, when they broke apart and stood there, staring at each other in mutual awe. Except this time the moment broke because of Ellana’s laughter.

  
It wasn’t the good kind of laughter. It was the kind that bordered on hysterical.

  
“You - you have to be joking,” she said. “I spend all day trying to make my peace with the thought of tricking and killing you - and then I come in here and - what - you’re here? Why?” She was laughing again, but there was fire in her eyes. “You must spend a lot of time sitting around figuring out exactly how best to hurt me.”

  
Solas sighed and lowered his gaze for a moment. Then he looked up at her. “Inquisitor, I wish to discuss the terms for my surrender with you.”

  
She shook her head slowly, disbelieving. “Why?”

  
“Because you were right. I have a responsibility to this world as much as to Elvhenan. There may be other ways to accomplish our goals.”

  
“No. Why do you want to surrender to me?”

  
Cassandra remembered the moment she knew that Ellana and Solas were in love. They were in the Emerald Graves, exhausted after a day that started with fighting a great bear, continued on to fighting giants, and ended with closing a particularly vicious rift. All while surrounded by the ruins of the Elvhen homeland, something she was reminded of every time she glanced at the two of them and saw the sadness in their eyes. Yet when Solas tried to go to bed while she, Ellana, and Thom were still awake, Ellana had gently called him back.

  
“Stay with us a while,” Ellana said. “Tell us a story about this place.”

  
The way he looked at her then had made Cassandra’s breath catch in her throat. It was a look she’d seen only a handful of times before. It was the look of someone who had already surrendered, for all the best reasons. It was the way he was looking at her now.

  
“Because you are the person who knows me best,” he said at last. “You are the person who has the right to judge me for what I’ve done.”

  
Ellana laughed again, short and brittle. Pressed her hand to her eyes.

  
“No,” she said. “I will not sit in judgment. Not yet. You need to earn their forgiveness first.” She gestured to all of them but Cassandra knew it wasn't just the people in this room that she meant - it was what they each stood for. “If you are only here for me - because of me - I don’t want that kind of surrender. That kind of -” The word hung in the air, unspoken. Love. “Until then, you will remain our prisoner. Is that acceptable?”

  
“We will need to move these negotiations elsewhere if they will take some time,” Vivienne said. “I do not think Orlais will appreciate so many soldiers from so many places lurking in its borders.”

  
“Ferelden will not be much more pleased,” Cullen countered.

  
“Back to Skyhold, then?” Dorian offered.

  
“Kirkwall,” Varric finally said. “I am the authority there, Andraste help us all. There won't be anyone to oppose us bringing him there that I can't handle, and no other foreign power will stir itself to get involved in the Free Marches. And you haven't been to see your estate in some time, comtesse.”

  
Cassandra huffed. Ellana just rolled her eyes. “Do I get to try using the key this time?”

  
“We’ll see about that,” Varric chuckled.

  
“Well, Fen’Harel?” Ellana said. “What do you say?”

  
He nodded, and again the air was heavy with things unsaid.

 

****  
There are moments that the words don’t reach  
There is a grace too powerful to name  
We push away what we can never understand  
We push away the unimaginable  
****

  
Thom Rainier was one of the last to get a chance to talk to Solas. He wanted it that way, though. He wasn't a man who was good with words. He needed time to think this through. Everyone else had all the really good things to say - Sera decked him with a well-placed punch and called them even. Vivienne grilled him for his for information about magic and the Veil, accepted that he would not approve of the Circles while they existed but would provide them with what knowledge he could. Bull played a long chess match with him and in which little was said but after which he seemed satisfied. Dorian railed at him for a solid hour about every one of his perceived faults before demanding his help to continue enacting reforms in Tevinter. Even before leaving for Kirkwall, he and Cassandra had a long talk about faith. The only thing that reassured Thom that his conversation with Solas wasn’t going to be totally inane was the fact that Cullen just walked up to him one day in camp, glared at him, asked if he really wasn't going to try this nonsense again, then said, "I guess that’s enough."

  
Even after that Thom waited a little longer. Several of their companions had left them by that time, and those who remained - Bull, Dorian, Sera, Cole, and Varric - had already spoken to Solas. Who was he to demand forgiveness? Solas had been rightfully furious with him when they discovered that he was not Blackwall at all. But then he saw Ellana, coming back from a morning walk in the woods, announcing that they would reach the Waking Sea by nightfall and Kirkwall not long after. It was a familiar sight. She didn’t enjoy talking early in the morning and would often roll out of her tent and head off to scout in order to wake herself up. She usually came back calm, ready to begin the day. Not so much on this journey. She came back still cagey, still terse. Before she always drifted towards Solas like a tide drew her to him. Now she stayed away.

  
In the end, that was what drove him to ride beside Solas that day.

  
"Thom," Solas said in acknowledgement. "I'll admit I'm still not used to that name."

"I can imagine. Do you truly prefer Solas over Fen'Harel?"

  
"Among my friends, yes. Just as Ellana has always begged you to call her by her name instead of 'my lady' or 'Inquisitor.'"

  
The woman in question was riding at the head of their party, far out of earshot.

  
"About Ellana - I think everyone has just about given you the business as to what you've done and how they feel about it. But I don't know that anyone has really told you what you did to her."

  
The elf looked away. Thom always struggled to read him in the past but he knew that look. The look of shame that nothing will ever really remove.

  
"Dorian did have one or two choice words for me on the subject, in between his other rants.”

  
"You know - I really admired her when we met. She didn't ask for any of the shit she was handed, but there she was, shouldering it. For the first time in a long time, I was truly proud of who I served. I'll even admit I fancied her a little. She was friendly to me in a way no one had been for a long time. But I knew, down in my bones, that even if she ever showed real interest in me, I would never deserve her. So I stayed away. How could you not do the same?"

  
Solas shook his head. "Consider yourself lucky she never did show interest in you. She was - quite persistent. I was not prepared for that."

  
"Still takes two to dance, doesn't it? You could've walked away. Should've walked away. Instead you just broke her fucking heart and left the rest of us to watch her piece it back together. Then came back and smashed it up again for good measure."

  
Thom's blood was actually boiling now, more than he thought it would be. He was remembering the look in her eyes when he asked her where Solas was, when she stepped into the hallway of the Winter Palace where once they lounged and talked, when she was standing there before them in the Darvaarad, dying, but thinking only of saving him.

  
"So everyone else has gotten all these fancy plans out of you about what you'll do with all the elves who are on your side and whether or not you'll support the Circles or how you'll help Tevinter change or how you'll interact with the Qunari, but here's what I want to know. What are you going to do about Ellana?"

  
They rode in silence for a little while, eyes on the woman ahead of them, who had led them both into battle more times than they could count, who had pardoned Thom, and would now decide whether or not to pardon Solas.

  
"I don’t know," Solas admitted at last. "It depends on what she wants from me. If she never wants to see me again - then - "

  
Another silence, but a more comfortable one, punctuated now and then by Sera's cackling laughter as Bull said something that was making Dorian flush redder and redder.

  
"You know, I did this once," Thom said. "After the Inquisition. I went and found all the men I could who were involved in what I did and apologized to them. It wasn’t easy, but it was the only thing that helped me move on."

  
"That was noble of you. I am happy it brought you peace."

  
"Has it brought you peace so far?"

  
"I cannot say."

  
Of course not. Not when her eyes were trained so steadily ahead of her that it could only be a ploy to avoid him.

  
“Well, I guess that’s the size of it, then,” Thom said at last, when he could smell the salt in the air and knew that soon they’d reach the harbor where they’d board their ship. “Do you know how much you’ve hurt her?”

  
“Yes.”

  
“And do you swear never to hurt her like that again?”

  
“If she will have me - yes.”

  
Thom nodded. “Well then - good. I guess all that’s left is the hard part.”

  
“And what is that?”

  
“Now you have to tell her that.”

  
Their journey by ship wasn’t long, but it was far more confined than their journey over land. Ellana couldn’t leave every morning or stay at the front of the party to avoid Solas any longer. She paced the length of the ship and stared out at the water, searching for a glimpse of the shores where she’d grown up, but every now and then her glance landed on him. He stood quietly by the ladder to the quarterdeck, most days. Watching her, but never approaching her. He was true to his word so far. He would have her only if she would have him.

  
They could see the shore on the horizon when she finally approached him. She’d circled the deck several times, looking at him whenever she thought he would not notice. Then she strode up to him as if she’d intended it all along.

  
“You’ve spoken to all of them?” she said.

  
“Yes,” he replied.

  
She nodded. “Good. When we get to Kirkwall, I will pass my judgment.”

  
She walked away without waiting for a response.

  
Her estate in Kirkwall was in Hightown, a nice enough place he supposed. It was tucked down a quiet lane and had a garden in the back. Exactly the sort of thing Ellana would like.

  
“You actually just up and made the Inquisitor a comtesse?” He couldn’t help asking Varric when they arrived.

  
“Yup.”

  
“I sort of thought she was joking.”

  
“Nope.” Damn, but the dwarf had the very definition of a shit eating grin on his face. They stood in the hall a moment, listening to the distant murmur of people dispersing through the house. “She never went back to her clan, you know. Not once. She needed a home.”

  
Once they were settled in, there was the matter of exactly where and how the Inquisitor would sit in judgment on her prisoner. Dorian had wisely pointed out that some form of audience outside their inner circle would be good, so news of her judgment could not be twisted as easily, but her estate didn’t quite have a room that would suit.

  
“How about being viscount for the day? I could use a break.”

  
Ellana narrowed her eyes at him. Maybe this was what would finally push her to unleash that rage she’d been carefully cultivating since the moment Solas walked into their camp. Varric back pedaled quickly.

  
“...or you could just use my big fancy throne?”

  
Invitations were sent to a select few - members of the Chantry, Kirkwall nobility, various ambassadors and dignitaries from other cities and territories. Varric read the writ Cassandra sent along affirming Ellana Lavellan’s authority to judge the prisoner, then joined the audience.

  
Ellana had changed into one of her suits of armor, complete with its metal breastplate emblazoned with the Inquisition’s eye. Thom hadn’t seen her in it in quite some time - not since they had defeated Corypheus, he realized. When she sat in the throne that ordinarily symbolized Varric’s authority, all he could see was her seated in Skyhold, staring him down, holding his life in her hands. It was Solas at her feet now, dressed simply, and unbound, emphasizing that he had surrendered willingly. There was a moment of silence where the two just regarded each other, until Ellana finally spoke.

  
“Solas,” she said. “Otherwise known as Fen’Harel. The Dread Wolf. You have incited insurrection amongst elves all over Thedas, killed soldiers from many lands, and plotted to tear down the very Veil itself. Do you deny these charges?”

  
“I do not.”

  
“Yet a month ago, when it seemed finally possible for you to carry out your plan, you willingly surrendered to me. Is that so?”

  
“It is.”

  
“And long before that, you served at my side, proving instrumental in Corypheus’s defeat and in preventing a Qunari takeover of southern Thedas. Is that so?”

  
“It is.”

  
There was a pause. Thom could hear the murmurings of the crowd around him - some awed, some angry, some fearful.

  
“How am I to judge a man who with one hand saved our lives and the other promised us destruction? Who wields a power so great we aren’t sure we can stop it - and yet willingly walked into my camp to give it away? How would you judge yourself?”

  
The murmur in the crowd rose at that. For the first time, Solas’s gaze wavered and fell.

  
“I would judge myself as a man who has always sought to do what was right. To protect freedom and justice. But I would also judge myself as a man whose vision of what is right has been narrow, and sometimes selfish. I judge myself as a man who should have surrendered to you years ago.”

  
Ellana fell silent for a moment, and the crowd followed suit.

  
“Then here is my judgment: you will surrender the elven artifacts you have gathered and we will decide the most fair way of keeping them secret and safe. You will withdraw all hostile agents from foreign lands. You will help me negotiate the terms for a new home for the Elvhen people and you will defend them with justice, fairness, and kindness.

  
“But above all, you will go out into the world and broaden your gaze. You will go out into the world and do good.”

  
Her voice broke a little on that word, and she looked away from him. There was absolute silence in the hall.

  
“This is my judgment. Let it stand.”

  
There was no more silence then. As Ellana left the dais Thom caught a glimpse of Solas standing there by the empty throne, staring at it. Thom recognized the look on his face. It was the look he’d worn when Ellana returned his freedom to him, a second chance so bright it blinded. The look of awe in the face of unasked for, undeserved forgiveness.

  
They returned to Ellana’s estate together, the companions who had remained. Thom thought that by that point, the storm would have broken and all would be well. She’d forgiven him, hadn’t she? But she was still quiet on their way back. When the others began making plans for a celebratory dinner, she just nodded along, and at a moment when eyes weren’t on her, withdrew. After they noticed, Solas quietly made his excuses and left, too.

  
“Did I miss something? Is it still not over with those two?” Dorian quipped. “They always have to make everything so complicated.”

  
“It’s not really that complicated,” Bull said. “That was the public apology. The apology on behalf of Thedas. Now comes the private apology. I hope.”

  
The day was getting on when Cole, who’d been listlessly flitting around the house, sat bolt upright on a windowsill.

  
“The garden. Green and fresh, the closest to home she’s felt in weeks. They are standing in the garden.”

  
There was a moment of silence where all their eyes met, and then slid over to the window. They shouldn't, Thom knew. This was private. But Cole kept talking.

  
“He’s by her side. She takes his hand. It’s quiet uptown, she says. She likes the quiet, and so does he. It lets them hear their hearts.”

  
Sera was the first to make it to the window.

  
“Demon boy is right,” she said.

  
There they were, in the small garden behind the house, seated side by side on the stone bench surrounded by crystal grace. Hand in hand. They were not speaking, not now. They were so still they might as well have been statues. Then Ellana’s shoulders went up and down in a deep sigh, and Solas reached out with his other hand and gently traced her jaw until she was facing him.

  
“Ewww! Kissing!” Sera said, but did not turn away.

  
He did not kiss her. Instead he held her face with both his hands and rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes, and she closed hers put her hand over one of his, and they drank each other in like that, like every plant in that garden drank in rain.

  
“You think she forgives him?” Dorian said.

  
“I’d say so,” Varric replied.

  
They lingered a while longer, but at a certain point the feeling of trespassing overwhelmed them and they moved away, consumed again by talk of which wine and which cheese and what other foods to procure, who could get a set of cards since none of them seemed to have remembered theirs. To them, it was over.

  
Thom alone knew what Solas was left with now: the beautiful, frightening task of shaping a life from that forgiveness. When they reentered, hand in hand, and everyone else chuckled or hooted or teased, Thom just sought Solas’s eyes. When they met, Thom nodded, and Solas returned the gesture. Thom knew the road ahead for the elf was hard. But he also saw the quiet, secret smile he wore as he watched Ellana bicker with her friends - their friends - and knew it would not be a lonely road.

 

****  
Forgiveness. Can you imagine?  
Forgiveness. Can you imagine?  
****

 

Solas was here. Really, actually here. In her house (she had a _house_ ). With their friends. Helping to set their table.

  
Ellana was so happy it frightened her.

  
This had to be a dream. A trick. Something that would slip through her fingers.

  
But every so often he would touch her with his fingertips. Lightly, gently. Those teasing touches that made her think back to Haven, to the Hinterlands, to the Storm Coast. Touches that left her wondering _was that on purpose? Is that the way a friend touches a friend? What did that one mean?_ Except this time she knew what he meant. He told her when he came to her in the garden.

  
He’d just sat by her side at first. They’d always been comfortable in silence together, but this time it overwhelmed her. What was there to say? Really? After all of it. So she’d taken his hand, just so she'd have something to hold onto. And she’d said the only thing she could think of.

  
“It’s quiet here. Uptown, I mean. Everywhere else in Kirkwall is so - loud. So much.”

  
“You always did like the quiet,” he said. “You found it wherever you could.”

  
It had smelled good in the garden too - earthy and sweet - she could say something about that - but - shit - she couldn’t just keep babbling. She took one deep breath and let it out. And then another.

  
“Solas -” She said. “What do we do? Not ‘we’ as in Thedas. You and me. What do we do?”

  
That was when he squeezed her hand.

  
“I don’t pretend to know. There’s no way I can replace the four years we’ve lost. The trust I abused. I know - you need time. I know there may never be enough time. You may never love me again.”

  
He had turned and looked at her, but she couldn’t meet his eyes.

  
“Just - if I could have one thing - let me stay by your side. That would be enough.”

  
And even then she still couldn't look at him. Couldn’t face the enormity of what he was asking - what she knew, in her heart, she wanted to offer. So she just gave him a short, tight nod.

  
The wind picked up, bringing with it the smell of the sea now. His hand was warm in hers, still calloused, exactly as she remembered. But nothing was what it had been. This was what she’d wanted - and now it was here - and she couldn’t speak the words.

  
“I - ”

  
_I love you I love you I never stopped loving you and if that makes me a monster so be it_

  
She let out a ragged breath. Something had touched her chin - his fingertips. She let him turn her face, but she closed her eyes. Not yet, don't let him see yet, how hopelessly, stupidly I love him. He held her face in both his hands and leaned his forehead against hers, so she covered her hand with his, and they just sat there in the sun and the silence. And she knew. Nothing was what it had been. Except this.

  
So that night they ate and laughed and told war stories and played games, and she did not shy away when their hands brushed. He watched for her reactions, observant as ever. Never risking more than that light brush. Willing to wait.  
They stayed another week in Kirkwall, waiting for news from their various allies as word of Solas’s pardon spread. The inevitable threats and condemnations came, of course. Rift mages from around Thedas who had worked out Solas’s location sent letters offering advice and asking for guidance. But it appeared there remained a glimmer of hope that one of their plans could come to pass - Orlais just might be willing to cede the Dales again.

  
“Well,” Ellana said when she read the news to Solas. “I never would have believed it at the time, but that damn ball keeps bearing fruit. I am certain at least part of this is Briala’s doing. I am happy neither of us neutralized her entirely.”

  
“It is a start, to be sure,” Solas said.

  
“I think that’s it for today’s correspondence - would you like to take a walk, maybe?”

  
“Certainly,” he said.

  
They’d done this once or twice now in the week that had passed - walked through Hightown, remarking on the buildings and people or just sharing silence. Occasionally people pointed at them or whispered behind their hands. Still, every time, it got a little easier to just be near him, to hear his voice, to ease back into familiar patterns. Whenever they returned, Ellana couldn’t help but feel like they’d interrupted a conversation the others were having. They always looked at the pair of them, watchful, as if expecting something to have miraculously changed. She finally asked Dorian about it that day while they were playing chess, waiting for dinner.

  
“Hasn’t Tevinter collapsed in your absence? Not that I want you to go back.”

  
“I do like to live dangerously. Maybe I’m waiting to see how far I can push this trip,” he paused, moved his piece, and then continued. “Or maybe I am waiting to make sure everything is actually - you know - all right.”

  
She stared at the board. She hated chess. So many possible combinations, and she knew there were ones she was missing, too.

  
“Can it be all right?”

  
“You know what’s terrifying? I think it can be. But it’s up to you.” He took his turn again. “No pressure, right?”

  
No pressure indeed. No pressure whenever they were in the same room. No pressure when they decided it would soon be time to leave for Orlais, that they would bid farewell to most of their companions at that point, that it would just be the two of them.

  
_You are an idiot, Ellana Lavellan._

  
Maybe it was the air of celebration at the dinner they had that night. Maybe it was because it felt like being back in Skyhold. Maybe it was just the wine. Maybe it was Dorian’s words. Maybe it was the sound of Solas’s laugh at the dinner table as they shared old stories. But something in her began to open up again.

  
_Things can be all right again._

  
“What time has it got to be?” Varric asked at last. “Midnight? Can the viscount stumble home drunk? Is that allowed?”

  
“There’s room here, oh wise viscount,” Ellana said.

  
“Oh? You are welcoming additional overnight guests? How charitable, comtesse,” the dwarf snorted.

  
“Certainly,” she said. “Let me just go and see that the room is ready.”

  
Her eyes lingered on Solas. And it was transparent as daylight, because hadn’t she checked that earlier? But that was the point. They knew what she meant. And so did he.

  
So when she left the dining room and went to the stairs, he was not far behind.

  
“I’m glad I was obvious enough,” she said.

  
“I’m not sure obvious is the word,” he said. He was close but not too close. Waiting. “I knew you wanted me to come out here, but not why.” She stepped forward, closing the distance a little, and she knew how good it would feel, in a moment, when they actually touched. She could already feel the warmth of his body, the way the hairs on her body had begun to prickle.

  
_Everything can be all right again. Everything can be good again._

  
“What do you want?” He asked then, softly.

  
He needed her guidance, as she had needed his. She thought back to the day in the Frostback Mountains, when he took hold of her wrist and aimed her hand at the rift and felt the world change. This time, she took his. This time it was an opening, and not a closing. A beginning. Uncertain as that frostbitten day.

  
“To try again,” she said, and led him upstairs.

 

****  
If you see him in the street, walking by her  
Side, talking by her side, have pity  
They are going through the unimaginable  
****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now I will close my eyes and pretend that there will actually be an ending that happy for those two. Shhhh.
> 
> One last huge thank you to everyone who has subscribed, commented, and left kudos - you guys are the best! If you are interested to see what happens when they head upstairs, head over to the sequel fic, "Body of Knowledge" (hint: what happens is 5 chapters worth of smut, angst, and fluff as they relearn each other after four years apart). And if anyone has any particular requests, I am all ears! I haven't really got much else that I am writing right now and I will miss writing these two.


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